Ars Gratia Artis

I was digging through my "Blog about this" bookmark file, and cleaning out the older ones when I ran across one I'd saved about the re-opening of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in NYC.

I'm generally a fan of museums, and of art museums in particular. When it comes to art museums and galleries, though, I am a bit picky about where I choose to spend my time and dollars. To quote a tired old phrase, " I may not know art, but I know what I like."

That's not entirely true in my case, though. While I'm not an art history major or anything remotely resembling a fine artist, I do know art, (well enough to differentiate a Man Ray from a Manet from a Monet, anyway) and I am enough of an historian to know how closely art reflects culture, and how an understanding of the creative process can give a person insight into the mind of the artist, even one living millenia in the past. Art is a powerful tool to help us trace our development as an individual, as a culture, as a nation, and as a species.

But not all art is fine art. Let me make that abundantly clear. While all art should make you think, if the primary message you receive is "This artist is a no-talent asshole", then perhaps the artist needs to rethink his medium, technique or his meaning.

I don't favor exclusive art. Art that needs interpretation from learned scholars, or art that was created to benefit too small of a segment of the population fails in its task, IMHO. If through your art you're making wry commentary on the relationship between the failures of the plebian class to embrace modern dance and the rise of grade-school prostitution, and you illustrate this concept via staple-gunning dead frogs dressed in gold lamé gowns to a rusty Frigidaire, you're making me work too damn hard.
No doubt your black-clad, beret-wearing, latte-sipping uptown bohos will slaver spittle upon your Birkenstocks upon seeing your genius unveiled, but in 40 years, you're not even gonna be a footnote in "Obscure Artists of Waco, Texas 1980-2030".

Now, I've heard the intelligentsia bloviate about how art should 'challenge the intellect'. These same intelligentsia reason that if you don't find a pile of purple-dyed goat poo sprinkled with carpet tacks and fresh couscous to be deeply meaningful, well, you obviously just don't "get it".

Oh, I "get it" all right. I get that the artist is probably incapable of creating a sculpture that reflects anything found in real life. I get that the artist couldn't draw the 'Cubby' character on the old matchbook cover ads. I get that the artist has BS'ed his way through art school, and is now attempting to put one over on the gallery crowd. I get that just like in the fashion industry, the drug enforcement industry and the publishing industry, there's too many people with a need to maintain the status quo for anyone to even casually mention that the Emperor's New Clothes are leaving little to the imagination.

To better illustrate where I'm coming from, it helps to know what I like, and what I respect.

As an artist, I need you to do something I'm not capable of doing. After all, if I can do what you just did, then what the hell do I need you for? Art should make me look up, no down.

I need you to show me something capable of stirring emotion, and to do it using all the skills at your disposal. To show mastery of your craft is to take pride in your gifts, and the years you've spent perfecting them.

I need you to respect your audience enough to not sprinkle us with urine and call it Holy Water, expecting us to believe you just because you're up on stage. The stairway to get up there goes down as well as up, Jackson. You're not THAT special.

Now, I will not say that all art I like is being created by the Rodins and the Rembrandts. I also have the highest respect and admiration for the folk artists. The ones with no formal training, but a sincere desire to make the world around them a little more pleasing to the eye. Sure, I realize that the quilt that Old Granny Watkins pieced together from scraps of material and backed with old flour sacks doesn't fall into the same realm as the Bayeux Tapestry, but her need to express herself I understand completely. Ditto for the folks that erect a bottle tree down in the Deep South. Yes, it looks kind of silly, but I respect the creative urge behind it, and the fact that for some people, art supplies are from objects at hand, not from the art supply house.

So, am I being inconsistent? Doesn't the Uptown Artiste have the same creative urge as the guy painting flowers on turtles? Sure. There's a big difference, though. There's no Eau de Poseur wafting around the turtle guy. He's not pretending to be more than he is. Most of the schlock art out there is perpetrated by the talentless on behalf of the self-deluded, with both sides pretending it's the Second Coming of Picasso.

Enough ranting for now. I'll do a list of favorite artists in a future post.