“The… monstrous ambiguity of the modernist artist’s
situation…” – Robert Motherwell.
With a broad view of the state of
modern art it isn’t incredibly difficult to understand what Robert Motherwell
was commenting upon. It is infinitely more hazardous to guess at what
particular point in recent history the artist tumbled off the track of
producing clearly comprehensible works, and drifted into the dark nether
regions of obscure references. It seems that the mind of a contemporary artist
is more akin to the custodian of a facility for the criminally insane, than one
involved in creative dialogue. Is the modern British art scene the fruit of a
conspiracy initiated by Charles Saatchi with advice from Maurice? I speak with
particular reference to the likes of Marc Quinn, Tracey Emin, the Chapman
Brothers and uber-obnoxious Damien Hirst. Can assemblages by this crew be held
up to the shining light of day and pronounced ‘great’ with the addition of an
enormous price tag?
Thus we question and seek some
clarification. Of course, aesthetics are not the easiest branch of philosophy
to discuss, but let us attempt to shovel through some of the murky
sentimentality and see if we can discover a possible glint of genius. In the classical
sense aesthetics deals with concepts of beauty in art. When judging art we
assess it by means of form and shape, colour, size and dimension, we compare it
to others like it. Lines of communication are established between the ‘object’
and its observer which bring a greater sense of understanding, even
intellectual growth. The styles and subject matter of pre-modern art (that
created prior to about 1860) are all responsive to this form of enquiry. This
relatively mundane and scientific manner of interpretation was blown to
smithereens by a young French artist in New York, in the summer of 1917. Marcel
Duchamp exhibited a porcelain ‘urinal’ as a work of art at the Society of
Independent Artist, and he called it ‘Fountain.’ Many considered it both blasphemous
and indecent. It smashed all rational means of understanding, and thus
shattered, we arrive today in the vehicle called contemporary art.
The modernist has relinquished
conforming to good taste. I propose that art nowadays is a fragmentary mosaic that
reflects the world in its entirety. Thus in our immediate global environment
saturated by mass media communications, images and information, in which the
apocalyptic lies side by side with absurdity and fantasy, we find an artist
swallowing the whole then regurgitating it piecemeal. For some artists like
‘Banksi’ who specializes in graffiti, art has become a sort of visual terrorism
that assaults our preconceptions on the nearest brick wall. Yet it is all
fascinating, a profound critique of humanity: less about aesthetics and more
genetics. This art questions values and forces us to examine ourselves, our
existence, meaning and purpose in a quest to identify true values. It can be a
bloody messy agenda, like that morning when Charles Saatchi strolled into his
gallery to find the cleaning lady had unplugged the refrigerator which
contained the head sculpture by Marc Quinn: cryogenically frozen and cast from
eight pints of his blood. The situation is actually far better today than
Robert Motherwell imagined for himself and his colleagues.
All Rights Reserved / Copyright David John Drew
2012.
