Nothing destroys art quite like ego. By art, I am referring to visual art, such as painting and sculpture. Narcissism is rampant in the visual art world, among both artists and art aficionados. It's part and parcel of the scene, much like the posturing and self-aggrandizement evident in sports, especially on the professional level.
But such is the ego of the art crowd that they will hypocritically deny that truth until death. "Art is important" they scream, "Art is the very essence of life!"
Artists, and art aficionados like to drive around with "EARTH", "Don't Fear Art", "You Are What You Art", and my personal favorite, "Art Feeds", bumper stickers on their cars. It's all good, I suppose, but if you have to remind yourself and everyone around you just how important art is to you, then how different are you from those wearing the Broncos and Nuggets shirts that you have no problem casually proclaiming to be beer-swilling Philistines?
Marcel Duchamp, an artist who produced little art in his lifetime (though he scored one helluva hit with the spectacular Nude Descending a Staircase), was a self-absorbed narcissistic prick of the highest order, and he is considered one of the single most important artist of the past 100 years.
Why? Because he brought a urinal to an art exhibition, called it Fountain, and proclaimed it art with the justification that "It is art because I say it is".
In his defense there is some evidence that he was taking a jab at the pretentiousness of the art world, and that it wasn't even his idea. However, he did embrace the whole Dadaist, anti-art, anti-rational dealio, so screw him. He also made big bucks selling replicas of the thing to museums throughout the world in the '60's, so again, screw him.
What? You say I'm missing his point? Right. Read on.
On the surface his 8 little words could be interpreted as very liberating. Unfortunately, since that statement was made they have also been the justification for the unloading and foisting upon the public of loads and loads of crap.
Every pretentious idiot whose frontal lobes have failed to develop beyond the plasticity of the early years of teenage iconoclastic rebellion has been running around making turd statues and garbage-pile collages and labeling them art.
Anyone who thinks this is a new phenomena is ignorant of life beyond current history. Those under-developed superficial types existed before Duchamp, but they were dismissed and/or ignored, as well they should have been, and told to either grow the hell up or get lost.
Not anymore. Those types have been embraced, even encouraged and admired. Their "childlike wonder" and "unpolluted expression of true emotion" is revered, placed upon the altar of Saatchi & Saatchi.
In short, those 8 little words have allowed generations of untalented hacks to not only florish, but to dominate.
Well, I say screw that. The only thing that is titillating about most conceptual visual art are the egos that create it. It is one thing to state that one is an artist, it is a whole 'nother ball of phlegm to proclaim one is an artist.
Engineers, Waitresses, Pool-room attendants, Mechanics - none of these people run around stating "I am an Engineer, Waitress, etc." quite like the average Artist states "I am an Artist".
It's fascinating. Most professions, even those that require artistic inclination and/or ability, such as writing, cooking, singing, acting, stand-up comedy, etc., have means and measures with which to separate the wheat from the rotten crap-ass chaff.
Most intelligent people can look or listen to a performance by an Actor and know if it's bad or good. Thousands of people who fancied themselves Comedians have been booed off stages all over the world, and it's always been acceptable for a publisher to tear a Writer's manuscript, one in which they poured his or her heart and soul, into unrecognizable pieces by having an Editor excise whole passages to make it coherent.
Those examples are not just considered acceptable, they're considered reasonable, practical. Hell, there are list made of best and worst movies, albums, TV shows, Chefs, Drummers - ad infinitum.
Could you imagine a crowd at a gallery booing a piece of art? How about a gallery owner hiring someone to take a chisel to a statue that just wasn't quite right?
Think Artist Magazine will ever come out with a "500 Best Paintings of the Abstract Impressionist Movement" issue or "50 Worst Artist of the Past 50 Years" article? How about a "The Very Best (And Worst) Art Exhibitions of the '90's"?
I didn't make those up, I took the titles of actual, published materials and substituted the original topics (Albums of the Rock Era, Novels, & Movies).
That level of criticism will never happen. It's no crime for professional critics to state in print that an actor is phoning it in or that a specific singer has sold out - but the equivalent just doesn't happen in the art world. Artist have been placed on a very, very high pedestal by the cognoscenti, which just weirds me out.
There has got to be the equivalent of Loverboy or Keanu Reeves in the art world - where is the equivalent of Simon Cowell or Roger Ebert?
They are like precious, untouchable objects de art themselves, these self-identified Artists.
People have lost careers due to possessing the audacity to criticize them (Seriously - look up what happened to Ivan Massow when he dared speak the truth back in 2002).
What makes me think I have any right to criticize any artist? Well, it's simple. A piece of dull, unoriginal, tasteless dreck posing as art is dull, unoriginal, tasteless dreck - because I say it is.
Stick that in your pipe and smoke it Mr. Castelli.
P.S. There's not an editor on the planet who would hesitate to correct all the mistakes I've made in this post. But pick up a brush and try to adjust the shade of blue I used for the sky...
No comments:
Post a Comment