Contemporary Art and the “Certified Rebellion”
Never mind Van Gogh crying. If he could have attended the 2007 International Contemporary Art Fair in Santa Fe, New Mexico, we would find him sprawled on the floor in a shock-induced comatose state.
Aside from a few Cartier-Bressons and one or two other respectable pieces, the mid-July show was a vast array of vacuous drivel, predictable down to its most minute details. It was as if someone had said to the exhibitors, produce a show that will capture, for all posterity, the monster that is known as contemporary art. Because otherwise no one will believe it, say, in the year 3000.
As an example, consider the work of Gertrud Parker, sponsored by the Galerie B. Haasner near Frankfurt, Germany. When you access their website, notice the first photo. This lovely creation, entitled “Driftwood Series #4,” was one of only four or five works on display at the Haasner booth. It looked to me at first glance like three insect larvae with buttons sewn onto them. Next to it on the wall was a masterpiece that comprised numerous jars containing clumps of women’s hair. This, according to the gallery representative at the booth, was symbolic of American soldiers killed in Iraq. My nausea prevented me from pursuing the matter further.
Where did Gertrud acquire this uncanny talent for translating international affairs into collage? According to a gallery brochure, “early on, a sense of social responsibility was instilled in the young Gertrud. Her grandfather, Karl Pick, was a union organizer…her father was director of the Workers’ Bank in Vienna, as well as a film producer, and Gertrud took a degree in Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley.” Any questions?
In recent years, I developed a standard reaction to these aesthetic atrocities: disgust and anger describe it well. But this time I reacted differently. First, I was struck by a sense of pity for the pathetic individuals I saw, the self-styled purveyors of art. They were rather friendly, with a shallow look in their eye, as if imploring me to take them seriously. I’ve seen that look before, in people recruiting on the street for cults of one kind or another.
In addition, I was amused by the hypocrisy. Much of the literature distributed at the fair goes out of its way to emphasize how rebellious these artists are. For instance, there was an article in the fair’s official publication, ART Santa Fe, entitled “A Trip to the Outer Bounds.” It informs us that “Outer Bounds, ART Santa Fe’s special projects arena, bounds toward the outré and evokes the immeasurable potency of the uncharted.” Leaving aside the fact that most of the works in the show are tasteless rehashes of earlier “outré” material, I noticed ads in the same magazine for private jets, BMWs, the top hotels in Santa Fe, and Sothebys International Realty. So much for outré.
In reality, these claims of nonconformity are nothing more than instances of the post-modern phenomenon we might refer to as the certified rebellion. This is when the cultural powers-that-be (alternately the media, publishers, museums, government agencies) sponsor expressions of indignation against lurking “reactionary” forces, all of which long ago ceased to exist as determining factors in the development of Western society. This gives people (who tend to be wealthy) the feeling that they are rebelling against the ruling class, when in fact they are nothing more than tools in the hands of those who set the agenda.
For a more extensive treatment of artists in contemporary Western culture, see my article at American Thinker.
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August 2nd, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Yes,I think that Van Gogh would have cut off his other ear if he saw what contemporary Art looks like today and possibly blinded himself! Or like Marcel Duchamp, would have submitted a urinal,titled fountain. This is what Marcel Duchamp submitted to the Society of Independent Artists exhibit in 1917 as a statement critiquing the art exhibit:a urinal titled FOUNTAIN and voila! it says it all!!
Unfortunately bad art can be commercially profitable. It has a wide following. It has no soul,no meaning,no emotion,no beauty. What does it say about people who buy this art?
I am trying hard to see the relationship of Gertrude Parker’s Driftwood series#4 with her childhood in Vienna and her “exile” in California. Is she saying that she came out of a cocoon (larvae)and became a butterfly? Who knows? Did anyone appreciate her art? I’m sure some people did. It’s “A la Mode”! And I don’t mean ice cream! Although ice cream would make a more delicious statement.
August 3rd, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Indeed, Driftwood Series #4 looks rather like three condoms in my opinion — perhaps those that failed Fraulein Parker’s parents. Any work that I could recreate myself is not art.
August 4th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
This is typical of what is happening to the Santa Fe art world. There were (and are) many great artists in the area, with authentic, indigenous styles. The region served as a magnet for talented artists. The fact that it was an authentic art center encouraged many people from all walks of life to not only see the art, but to relocate to Santa Fe. But certain opportunistic elements in the “international??? art world have piggy-backed onto this scene, trying to turn the regional art into another example of commercialized, publicity-based “art.??? Santa Fe was doing quite well without being “internationalized??? and “cutting-edge.??? It’s significant that in the entire Art Santa Fe exhibition, out of 60-odd exhibitors, only 7 were local. What’s wrong with staying with a formula that is successful and encouraging of high quality?
August 22nd, 2007 at 8:13 am
Man, you are speaking my thoughts.
I once wrote a letter on my thoughts on the state of modern art to the Art Renewal Center (artrenewal.org). What passes for art these days is really a deconstructionist ideal. Check it out, if you’ve got a few to spare. I think you’ll enjoy it.
http://www.artrenewal.org/articles/2003/Best_of_ARC/best1.asp?msg=711&forumID=34
August 22nd, 2007 at 8:46 am
Thank you, Steve. I enjoyed your letter as well as the website.
August 23rd, 2007 at 4:38 am
This anti-art that has flourished over the past 60 years or so has depended largely on government funding. Part of the inspiration for the anti-artists is the pleasure they derive from spitting in the face of the people whose taxes support them. Take away the various subsidies and only real art will remain.
August 23rd, 2007 at 6:31 pm
This is the inevitable vulgar and vulgarizing time of the western adolsecent ego—the time of universal cultural dis-integration.
Western adolescent ego “culture” ruled by one dimensional objectifying “reason” is deeply set in rebellion against all True sources of authority, against Truth, Reality, and The Beautiful altogether. And even against all others, and even all of general society, and of course, the State, and likewise, even the total natural world (for the rigid adolescent ego will not endure “dependence”, even on its own necessary supports), and so also even the entire cosmic order, or quite literally everything that is not self.
The war of all against All and everything dramatised all over the planet, and with devastating consequences.
Have you read the news?
August 23rd, 2007 at 7:27 pm
The truth of the matter is that with rare exeception there is no True Art to be had or found anywhere in the West. Such is totally impossible in the ruling adolescent ego- “culture”.
Why?
Because it by necessity means/implies transcending the rigidified “meanings” that bind the dominant adolescent personality together. The undoing, or rather the outshining, of the structures of the adolescent ego, being the necessary price to pay for THE BEAUTIFUL to manifest Itself. The immutable Law or Reality with a capital R.
The aesthetic experience, including the necessary great and sublime perceptual experience of real and true beauty, is not merely a nice idea. Rather the aesthetic experience of real and true beauty, or the aesthetic and artistic manifestation of the The Beautiful ITSELF, is a human necessity, even fundamental to the intrinsic structure of the human body-mind. The aesthetic experience of real and true beauty is neurologically based or pre-”wired” into the human nervous system and brain. Any counter-aesthetic, or anti-aesthetic effort, or any effort that opposes, or runs counter to, the “beauty-wired” aspect of the human structure is, in effect, a form of abuse of the human being, and of the necessary right acculturation of humankind as a whole.
The true, and traditional, purpose of art is to draw the human being into the sphere of the aesthetic experience, in which the entire brain and nervous system, and indeed the entire body-mind and active life, is profoundly “tuned” to Reality, Truth, and The Beautiful Itself, altogether.
There is a human necessity for a kind of resonation of vibratory participation in Reality, Truth, and The Beautiful Itself, beyond conventional “yes” and “no”, beyond conventional formalized “beauty” and conventional “ugliness”, beyond conventional “realism” (as defined by reason), and beyond egoity altogether. Such human profundity is a great and necessary purpose, which true art and, altogether, true culture and right civilization, should and must serve.
That possibility has been effectively made impossible, even profoundly taboo, in the adolescent ego “culture” created in the image of one-dimensional “reason”.
January 1st, 2008 at 9:34 pm
I once saw an exhibit at the Chicago Art Institute that consisted of several hundred bricks arranged in a rectangle on the floor. I’m not sure if it was from their permanent collection or was carted in just for that “show.”