The Conscripted Doormat
Out here in flyover country, nestled in the mountains of New Mexico at over 7,000 feet, is an enclave of coastal post-modernism. A native of Greenwich Village, though he would have to get used to the altitude, would feel immediately at home in Santa Fe. He would be surrounded by post-modern “art,” popularized Eastern medicinal practices, crystals, Hollywood personalities, money, expensive real estate, and bourgeois pseudo-intellectual leftist arrogance. In spades.
And it keeps getting more extreme by the day. You cannot escape it, not for a moment. Even objects as innocuous as a doormat are conscripted for the cause:
To borrow a phrase from a different context, when art rots in Santa Fe, God sheds a tear. This is because outside of New York City, Santa Fe is probably the largest art center in the United States. When you walk through the town, which is not very large (pop. 70,000), you are struck by the proliferation of art galleries. There are dozens and dozens of them. Everywhere. And many of them are quite upscale, having not one iota of prestige less than their colleagues on the coasts.
Take, for example, the Riva Yares Gallery. As is so typical here, an attractive Southwestern-style building houses the most hideous objects:
Go to the website to see how the post-modern hoax is presented to the public. When you get inside the Flash presentation, go to Exhibitions > Milton Avery. View the pictures. Do you laugh or cry?
Santa Fe has an old Hispanic culture, which of course is being edged out by the affluent leftists. When the two come together, it can produce some interesting juxtaposition. Here is a man performing the age-old custom of chile roasting:
Notice in the background, across the street, the golden-colored post-modern sculptures in the front yard of an art gallery (Linda Durham).
During my trip the other day, I set foot into numerous galleries. I did not see one single painting or sculpture of which I could say, “Yes, this is truly an excellent work.” The breakdown was about 5% not-too-bad, 15% mediocre, and 80% atrocious beyond words. The only exception to this aesthetic sadism are a couple of galleries specializing in photography, that show old masters such as Cartier-Bresson and Ansel Adams.
Okay, let’s have some fun. Below is a rogue’s gallery of Santa Fe masterpieces. I am presenting a caption for each one. Can you come up with something better? Here we go:
1. Drainpipe to Nowhere
2. Indigestion Post-partum
3. Post-human Therapist
4. Invasion of the Toothpick Monsters
5. Hope ‘n Change
6. Haven’t I Seen You Before Somewhere?
7. I Like to Express Myself
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September 1st, 2008 at 8:28 am
1)Handrail for the Stairway to Heaven… No, wait… the Highway to Hell!
2)Timothy Leary Enema
3)Fun with a Silly Straw
4)Ancient Amerind Fart Catcher
5)Mona Plywood
6)Cubic Loogies
7)City Citation for Unkempt Yard
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:46 am
Gary:
Why does stuff like this get exhibited in art galleries – not just in Santa Fe, but in “sophisticated” cities all over the Western world? Who says it’s “art” anyway? Art critics, gallery owners and such like say so of course – but why should anyone believe them?
John Carey argues that anything can be a work of art if someone chooses to regard it as such aesthetically – e.g. by putting it in an art gallery. There are however some things, such as Barbara Hepworth’s sculptures, for instance, that are works of art because there is nothing else for them to be. Unless we choose to regard them as junk.
September 3rd, 2008 at 10:15 am
The art museum exemplifies the truncation of art in modernity. Pure art as such is not made for its own sake but for the sake of God or man. The works you’ve posted here are self-serving, egotistical, desacralized and express nothing of the Absolute, Eternal or Truthful.
Alex:
I’d suggest an article called Art in the Dark by Thomas McEvilley which can be found in Apocalypse Culture, second edition, which intelligently deals with artistic appropriation.
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:00 am
Shayne says: “The works you’ve posted here are self-serving, egotistical, desacralized and express nothing of the Absolute, Eternal or Truthful”.
I can’t remember agreeing with your views in previous exchanges, but I endorse your comment here with alacrity.
(I’ll check out Art in the Dark if I can find the text online.)
September 3rd, 2008 at 1:08 pm
1.) Factory Accident
2.) Glue Spill
3.) Coat Tree
4.) Looking Down on You
5.) Drop Cloth
6.) Practice Shapes
7.) Flea Market
I honestly think #4 is decent. (It’s the only one I gave a real name to.) I can see how the artist might be trying to convey the feeling of being scorned by pretentious people. Those dudes are tall, looming over the viewer, but they’re all legs: There’s no substance to them. They appear intimidating and presumably view themselves as formidable, but really you could probably just shove them over or walk around them. An alternate title could be “The Professors.”
The others are crap. I’m especially offended by 5. All the others all at least look intentional, but 5 looks like a complete accident. Putting something like that in a gallery is an act of vandalism, an egg thrown at the face of art. Which is, of course, the very reason why some find it appealing.
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:51 pm
I worked at a Family Dollar for about six months in 2006-2007, and in that time, I stocked items that looked like these (especially 3, 4, and 7), but they were intended to be sold for $1-$5, not enshrined in a public place for all to see. We got in a new shipment about once a month, and when I left, there were still items around from when I got there.
September 5th, 2008 at 6:14 am
Steve Burri: Thanks for the chuckle.
Alex: I would agree that in this stage of art’s deterioration, the fact that a work is exhibited in a gallery may very well be its only claim to be “art.???
Shayne: You have put your finger on one of the central problems with such work: it emanates entirely from the subjective, emotional, animal side of man, and as such has no broader applicability.
Mr. Tweedy: My reply to Shayne is relevant here as well. A “complete accident??? is indeed what has occurred.
Zordran: Perhaps some gallery owners are picking up their works wholesale at Family Dollar. That could explain a lot.
September 21st, 2008 at 7:39 pm
“I’m especially offended by 5″ (Mr Tweedy) — I don’t know, I think that’s one of the better ones; it’s not a bad abstract painting. Of course, if you have a problem with abstract art in general, that painting’s not going to help!
It’s very hard to get any consensus about what “good art” is and it’s interesting that people who seem to care little for the aesthetic aspects of life seem to be the ones who have the most definite opinion about what “art??? is. I’m someone who has studied art, as an amateur, all my life and I’m much less sure what “art??? is than most of these instant critics. Is there an accepted definition that we all agree on or does it always boil down to an individual’s notion of what constitutes goodness in art? And should good art (I’ll dispense with the inverted commas when dealing with “contentious notions??? oops – there I go again! inverted commas generally being a sign of post-modern intellectual vapidity anyway) be pretty, or easy on the eye? Can it be ugly and still great art? Look at Goya’s “Saturn devouring his children??? – it’s horrifying, it’s confronting, hardly any civilised person would want a reproduction on their loungeroom wall – but is it great art?
September 22nd, 2008 at 6:54 am
Is it just me or does anyone else who is an artist or art enthusiast feel as though a great farce is being perpetuated on the ignorant public? Emperor’s new clothes style??..
September 22nd, 2008 at 6:56 am
Oh btw I loved the title of #5. That’s good stuff.
September 22nd, 2008 at 9:44 am
Rick Hawkins: I have made very few attempts (if any) in the pages of AWOL to define what is good art. Instead, I have focused on what I call “anti-art,” or the distinctly post-modern effort to overturn art, to rip it from its pedestal and send it down the memory hole. The same idea applies in visual art, music, and literature.
Real art must be an expression that transcends the individual. This is the only way to have any “meaning” that is in any sense significant. The turning point in post-modernism is the rejection and denigration of that meaning, replacing it with purely subjective, animalistic impulses that relate to nothing outside of the nanosecond that the impulse is carried into communicable form. This is the hoax of anti-art: Turning meaningless into meaning, under the banner of “everything has meaning.” It is aesthetic nihilism, and it reduces human intellect to dust.
For a good exposition of similar ideas, I would recommend the writing of Roger Kimball, for example his book The Rape of the Masters.
Tammy Most: I do not think you are alone. On the contrary, many people I speak with realize that it is indeed a “farce,” as you put it. Often, however, they are intimidated by the presumed “sophistication” of the art denizens.
By the way, welcome to AWOL!