What is Art ?
For the majority of the population, contemporary art is a waste of time. They walk in a gallery and are greeted with scrunched up balls of paper, an artist’s name in italic letters, or something made from faeces. Inevitably, they feel somewhat underwhelmed. They leave the gallery and never return.
Ironically, the roots of the current alienation from the arts can perhaps be traced to the dada movement of the 1920s that argued it was trying to make art more accessible. The dadas devalued skills and argued that everyone could be an artist. In theory, the devaluing of skills allowed everyone to be able to put something in a gallery and have it recognised as art. In practice; however, not everyone had the relationships with gallery owners that allowed them to have their work put in a gallery. Nor did they have the social relationships with art writers that could garner favourable reviews for what they put in a gallery. As a consequence, the gallery remained an alien concept for them. Those that did have the relationships arguably gained opportunities for reasons other than their artistic merit. Art for the people became art cronyism.
The trend of finding fame by devaluing skills probably began with the work of Marcel Duchamp and his "readymades." Duchamp developed the concept of divine selection. He argued that everything was potentially art and an artist merely needed to be able to identify it and put it in the gallery. Once in the gallery, the context would ensure that the readymade would serve its artistic role. Duchamp first applied his concept by finding a urinal and putting it in the gallery. In this way, the audience was able to see a urinal in a new light. Instead of being a urinal, it was an application of advanced artistic concept.
Duchamp - Fountain (1917)
Andy Warhol was another that became rich by corrupting the semantic boundaries of art and community perceptions about what art should be. Warhol argued that art was anything that you could get away with, and indeed he got away with a lot. Warhol searched for iconic or easily recognisable imagery, and then altered them enough so that they became his own. Consequently, a print of a Campbell’s Soup can became a great work of art simply because Warhol said it was art. The more his art was ridiculed, the more recogniseable it became and the higher its value.
Andy Warhol - Campbell's Soup (1962)
Artist’s Shit by Piero Manzoni was another work that was accepted to the exalted world of art due to its recognisability. Manzoni created an edition of 90 cans of his own faeces, along with the description '"Artist's Shit", contents 30gr net freshly preserved, produced and tinned in May 1961.' He then sold them for their comparable weight in gold.
For most of the world, only the insane would buy human faeces as if it were gold. Ironically, this ensured their value. As soon as galleries commenced buying the shit, they were engaging in an act that would get people talking, and that talking heightened awareness of the cans that they owned. It wasn’t long before the cans of shit became far more valuable than gold. Whether praised or ridiculed, the fact that they were famous ensured their value.
Artist's shit - Piero Manzoni (1961)
The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living by Damien Hirst is another famous artwork that has sparked debate about art. The work was a shark preserved in formaldehyde, and its immortality as an artwork seemed to ask simplistic questions about death. Ironically, Hirst's shark was poorly preserved and had to be replaced 15 years after its creation. Death, it seems, was something that not even formaldehyde could prevent.
In response to claims that anyone could have done his shark, Hirst would respond, "But you didn't did you?" It wasn't really a fair comment considering not everyone has someone like Charles Saatchi prepared to fund the creation of art and the connections to make it a success.
The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living by Damien Hirst
As a result of work by Duchamp, Warhol, Manzoni, Hirst and others, today there is no consensus as to what the art means, and many people outside of the arts think that those inside are a bit loopy. This disconnection between artists and wider society really is a cause for concern because it reduces the quality of art produced. Many artists believe that skills are not important and any old shit can be served up without fear that the public will be pissed off at the artist for wasting their time.
Perhaps a more significant concern is that the iconic works have set a trend of "experts" deliberately disregarding public opinion when judging art. For some, to be disliked is a mark of quality. Not only does this reinforce public alienation from the arts, it also allows vested interests to promote their mates - or people of use to them - to funding boards, teaching bodies, and curatorships. Sometimes these promotions might be to serve political interests, sometimes they might be to serve financial interests. In a nutshell, if there is no need to have public approval for art, there is no need to be accountable for the decisions that are made and corruption can rein. Furthermore, if art that can be created by anyone is also art then the art that is defined as elite is the art where brown nosing and cronyism has reined.
For me, Ships of Redemption was a symptom of this cronyism. The work won the 2009 Willoughby Council Sculpture Prize. I don't mean that the artists had any kind of relationship with the judges. I just mean that it was in the interests of some unskilled and uneducated people in positions of artistic responsibility to maintain a cultural ethic that sees skills and intelligence devalued. It is irrelevant whether the Willoughby Council judges consciously choose a rubbish piece to maintain that ethic, or were simply themselves consumed by the ethic consciously promoted by others. What matters is that a $10,000 art prize went to a sculpture that alienated the general public and was is no way revolutionary in the tradition of Duchamp, Warhol and Manzoni. In a world littered with unskilled art winning art competitions and being put in government galleries, Ships of Redemption was just another unskilled and uninteresting piece.
Ships of Redemption (2009) - Derek John and Julie Collins
Some of the comments by Kristy Edmunds, chair of the Melbourne International Arts Festival, are perhaps better able to illustrate how interests are served by disregarding public opinion. After Ms Edmunds took over as chair of the festival, ticket sales fell from $3.5 million to $2 million with a projected target of $1 million the following year. In response to criticism of her performance, Edmunds said that said worrying about box office "infantilises the whole experience".
If that were really the case, Edmunds could have relocated the festival to an outback town where costs would have been lower and kangaroos might have enjoyed what humans had not. However, by freeing herself from the constraints of public opinion, Edmunds was able to chair a show where art was not included on merit. Furthermore, she was able to justify keeping her position even though merit should have stipulated that she lost it. In a nutshell, by devaluing skills or intelligence and the role of the public in art, she got funding from the public with little need to be accountable to the public.
As an artist, I found Edmund's comments to be absurd. When I have exhibitions, I want as much media exposure, as many visitors, and as many sales as I can get. No honest artist would say otherwise. While the creative process is for the self, the display is for others. Musicians play gigs because they want to be heard. If they didn't care about being liked or not, they would stay in their garages and save money. Likewise, artists have exhibitions because they want their work consumed. Even if they produce non-comericial work that can't be sold, they still want their work to be seen and would love nothing more than someone to write about it. To say otherwise is nothing more than a death of honesty.
While Hirst's shark is quite interesting to me, I lament that his kind of art has created an idea that being unpopular is somehow the same as being great. I also lament that the devaluing of skills is sold as a way to make art more accessible when really it is simply a means to sell cronyism. Finally, I lament that some of the most famous artworks in the world are not talked about not because they inspire, but because they do not.
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