Here
is one done by Joan Miro’s great-great-granddaughter at the age of five or
six. If you stand far enough back you
can see how colourful and lively it is,
But
what about his one? It looks like some
distant cousin a few times removed of Vassily Kandinsky did it soon after a
painful stomach operation. You could
just smell, as well as well as taste, the consequences of all that churning
about still going on.
I
liken that painting over there, the one where the mother has chased down her
son in the subway to clean his ears with a tissue and spit. Wrong, alas.
Read the caption: a wild woman has throttled a child and threatens to
cut its neck with a shard of pottery.
Are you sure about that? I could swear someone found a photo of the time
my mother did that to me on our way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, must
have been in 1949.
Well,
not too many years later, when I was almost eighteen and just starting to think
about things, such as art and history, I went to the Met, walked into the room
where a giant Jackson Pollack was hung, and I sat on a long stone bench and
said to myself that I would not get up until the work made sense and proved it
really was a work of art. After less
than two hours I gave up and left. Ever since, it has seemed to me that not
such a long time need be expended, like today, in this exhibition.
The
bright colours there are striking.
Where? In the far corner on the left.
Looks like a semaphore flag, slashed diagonally. Yes, but the colours, so bright and
attractive. Must mean something.
My
most best favourite, hmmm, that’s not easy to say, but that thing over there in
the corner, some kind of, wha’dya call it? a project or a projection or whatever. Yes, that’s it. What! No, you’re kiddin’ me, a fire
extinguisher? Well, I’ll be darned.
Did
you vote for your favourite? They keep asking me. You are so negative, I wonder
if you have any favourites, or even any you could bring yourself to look at again. Now don’t get nasty, please. Of course, I put in my ballot. It’s the one with the dark girl facing away
from the painter’s gaze and our observation.
Very skilfully done, and traditional.
Traditional? Yes, there are
several outstanding portraits of famous men with their heads seen from
behind. It’s as though the artist tried
to capture not so much the personality of the model or the deep feelings
welling up from within him or herself, but rather the subject stands as a
medium through which the artist wants us to look out beyond the canvas, away
from us, into the unseen dimensions at the very heart of consciousness.
Surely
the winning candidate must have something you like. Not really.
It only tells me what is fashionable in the art schools over the last
few years. The creator’s statement seems
more important than the product of insight and technique. Shows you how far someone could go with
minimum skill and lack of insight. I beg
your pardon, but that is a gross insult to the judge and the committee, isn’t
it? I hope so.
No
use expressing yourself until you have has some experiences worth leaving
behind.. If you have never gone
anywhere, done anything, and don’t visit museums to study and imitate what has
proven itself, what’s the point? Why
waste our time?
All
the great art of the nineteenth century has to struggle for acceptance. The artists suffered in garrets and ruined
their health with drink and drugs, dissipated their lives, committed suicide. So you say.
It’s
not the work itself, someone said, but the narrative behind it and the
conversation it engenders. What lies
behind such a statement is, to be sure, a load of codswallop, as though some
constructivist fool decided to do away with art altogether and replace it with
social science gobbledigook. If someone
decides to kill him/herself an artist, then no matter what, whatever they do is
a work of art. And no one can gainsay
this since, in post modernism, everybody’s opinion is as good as everyone
else’s no matter how lacking in
substance, evidence or truth. The function of art, it is further
asserted by those who make such assertions, the objective of art is to create
controversy, debate and a whole lot of empty noise in public. And yet, these are the self-same people who
deny the validity of any Big or Master
Narrative, and conceive of a debate (there are no rules) or a dialogue
(no one listens to the other side and constructs a rational reply) as
ill-informed and uneducated voices shouting over each other: may the loudest
voice win, or at least the last to croak into silence.
The
child of twelve or thirteen walks around the exhibition hall thoughtfully. Did you find any picture you like? I liked almost all of them. And what made you like them? They were really
cool. What about the others, the ones
you didn’t like so well? They were sort
of ok but they weren’t cool. Isn’t she
clever?
Later
the artist and the runners-up come to the stage to receive their awards. Thank you, everyone, for liking my work. It is really cool. Next year, I will do the same picture again
using different crayons.
Art
should not have to be this or that, for this and that depend upon styles and
tastes, ages and cultures. If “should”
is forbidden, then so, alas, are “beauty”, “truth” and “significance.” But what about “skill” and “talent,”
“insight” and “genius”? Perhaps “art” itself should go, since, from early in
the twentieth century, it was overtaken by “design” and “ornament”.
The
judge stood up to make her speech. The
exhibition hall went almost silent, except for the children still careering
about in a mad frenzy of delight, and servers served the last glasses of wine
and offered the final squares of cheese on toothpicks. “Ahem.
It is my pleasure and honour to be here tonight.” The audience applauded
politely. “I have looked twice at these
paintings, first, in the photographs you sent by email attachment, and then,
here in your beautiful little city when I first arrived and walked through the hall.” “Here, here,” several; enthusiasts murmured in
a no otiose way. “My feeling is that all these works should deserve awards”—titters of laughter—“but, of course, that is
impossible—there would no funds left to pay me”—guffaws and nervous
coughing—“so I will name only the third runner up, the second prize, and all
the around winner.” The audience drew in its breath in anticipation of the results. “Third runner-up is a painting I
found delightfully provocative.” Shouts
of approval. “The second prize goes to a
work of art that shows how engaged the artist is in finding her place in life
after many years of very difficult issues.”
Loud applause. “And now, what you
have all been waiting for, the over-all winner of the Art Awards goes to a
painting that I found excruciatingly cool.”
A stunned silence. Then shouts of
“Cool, cool, cool!”