The Great Art Debate

[William the White]

Robert Murray (deceased) an apparently very well respected art critic said: "Artists like Jeff Koons and – he later added – Damien Hirst were barely real artists at all, but grotesque market manipulators. " Would that class as intelligent and perceptive?

Not at all, not in the slightest, if that was the extent of the statement.

However, if he presented an argument, with evidence for his opinion, that could be more persuasive, or, at least, worth considering.

Do you have a link to such an argument/analysis/critique?

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

I'm uncrediting Tango then! TBF, all good parody has a ring of truth to it. There are definitely people who come out with pseudo-intellectual shite like that when talking about modern art, and I think people are put off by it.

I had to read the following post to be sure... but that made it a cert...

But, actually, most criticism of modern art is intelligent and perceptive - even when you disagree with it. Can you give an example of the obscurantist bullshit you mean?

I just feel people make claims all over the debate that are partially justified at best...

Hmmm, I think the claim for 'most' is partially justified at best.

Certainly a lot of writing about contemporary art is wilfully inaccessible and often just confused in both thinking and language.

Galleries and auctioneers selling contemporary art are particularly bad offenders.

Catalogue text for exhibitions is dire at least as often as it isn't. You have heard me praise Martin Creed's retrospective, but the catalogue is an implausibly earnest, dull, academic affair - completely at odds with the experience of walking around the galleries of his output.

Here's something Waldemar picked up on last year:

When I say overcurated, I mean overcurated. The five painters have been chosen by no less than three curators (1.666 artists each?), whose ramblings in the catalogue are a disgrace to the English language and an insult to the few poor souls wandering through Tate Britain on the day I visited. No wonder there was hardly anyone there. Why should anyone visit an institution so insensitive to the needs of communication that its catalogues contain sentences that proceed “As painting is no longer in a position of autonomy — alone and apart — this also entails a move away from an idea of medium specificity, defining a practice as ‘painting’ or ‘film’, and towards a post-medium age, what a recent conference at Harvard examined as the ‘medium under the condition of its de-specification’ ”?

Or how about this incomprehensible sentence from the recent Tate Modern catalogue on Richard Hamilton, written by Benjamin Buchloh (professor of art history at Harvard)?

After all, it was precisely at this moment that the museum was beginning its transition from a site within the bourgeois public sphere where democratically formed subjects would encounter experience of the unconscious, to an institutional rallying point where all the forces of contestation and subversion, initially operative in the artistic practices of the avant-garde and the neo-avant-garde, could now be condensed and controlled under the mythical auspices of universal democratic accessibility in the enforced practices of consumption.

Really?

I could go on all night, but all this is best done by Alistair Gentry and his 'Artbollocks' theatre. http://careersuicideblog.wordpress.com/ ... rectrixes/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It's well worth watching more of his videos of this rubbish.

[TANGODANCER]

Robert Murray (deceased) an apparently very well respected art critic said: "Artists like Jeff Koons and – he later added – Damien Hirst were barely real artists at all, but grotesque market manipulators. " Would that class as intelligent and perceptive?

Not at all, not in the slightest, if that was the extent of the statement.

However, if he presented an argument, with evidence for his opinion, that could be more persuasive, or, at least, worth considering.

Do you have a link to such an argument/analysis/critique?

I'll have to have a scout around for where I read it. ...Tomorrow, it's 12-45 and bedtime.

[Prufrock]

I'm uncrediting Tango then! TBF, all good parody has a ring of truth to it. There are definitely people who come out with pseudo-intellectual shite like that when talking about modern art, and I think people are put off by it.

I had to read the following post to be sure... but that made it a cert...

But, actually, most criticism of modern art is intelligent and perceptive - even when you disagree with it. Can you give an example of the obscurantist bullshit you mean?

I just feel people make claims all over the debate that are partially justified at best...

What Crayons said

It's not in my experience a problem suffered uniquely by Modern Art, and tbf I don't read or know enough about the subject to say whether Modern Art suffers more or less in respect of the proportion of stuff written about it that is utter nonsense compared to other movements, but I do think it is particularly obscurant when it's written in a Modern Art context because Modern Art is often 'hard', for want of a better word.

If somebody comes out with some over-wrought piffle about Monet, it's pretty easy to dismiss the description as bollocks without also dismissing the painting. It's easy to say 'no, that's bollocks, but I still like the painting' because, whilst a bit of background almost always enhances the painting, it's not usually necessary for any enjoyment at all.

I think it's harder with Modern Art which often needs some initial insight to make any sense at all. If the first thing you read about it is overcooked rubbish then you're going to be turned off.

I'm even starting to think Hirst's shark might not be bollocks (thought the subsequent formaldehyding of anything he could get his hands on is! And - I didn't realise he had the shark specially killed, the prick!)

[TANGODANCER]

Robert Murray (deceased) an apparently very well respected art critic said: "Artists like Jeff Koons and – he later added – Damien Hirst were barely real artists at all, but grotesque market manipulators. " Would that class as intelligent and perceptive?

Not at all, not in the slightest, if that was the extent of the statement.

However, if he presented an argument, with evidence for his opinion, that could be more persuasive, or, at least, worth considering.

Do you have a link to such an argument/analysis/critique?

Here you go Will: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign ... art-critic" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[TANGODANCER]

"Two OAPs were visiting an art gallery for their day out. They come upon this large painting of what seems to be 3 black men sitting on a park bench, but the one in the middle has a white penis. The 2 oldie goldies study this artwork for some time but still cannot fathom the meaning of the picture. Finally they spot the gallery curator and ask him to explain what the picture really signifies. The curator rather pompously explains at length that it's the latest artwork of a scottish artist and the white penis signifies the emasculation of the black race through it's history of oppression from european colonialists etc. etc. etc.
After a long and patronising lecture the curator leaves them, but the 2 pensioners are still staring at the painting with a bewildered expression when they are approached by a man who has overheard the explaination by the curator.
"Do ye want to know what it really means"
"And how would you know what this means?" they ask.
"I'm the man who created this piece of art" he says with a pronounced scottish accent.
"You see," he continued " it's really quite simple, all it shows is 3 scottish coal miners sitting on a bench for a break and the one in the middle popped home for his lunch."

[William the White]

Robert Murray (deceased) an apparently very well respected art critic said: "Artists like Jeff Koons and – he later added – Damien Hirst were barely real artists at all, but grotesque market manipulators. " Would that class as intelligent and perceptive?

Not at all, not in the slightest, if that was the extent of the statement.

However, if he presented an argument, with evidence for his opinion, that could be more persuasive, or, at least, worth considering.

Do you have a link to such an argument/analysis/critique?

Here you go Will: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign ... art-critic" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thank you, Tango.

I have The Shock of the New (the book). But obviously, since it was published in 1980, it doesn't deal with the YBAs of the Hirst generation.

That said, if the bench mark is Picasso, there's hardly anyone who gets over the line in the 20th century, or, so far, in this... When you are compared with genius you will aspire simply to be 'good'... And make do with 'OK'.

[TANGODANCER]

^^

You must admit todays artists, due to the passage of time, are a different breed than: "the Paris in the 1900s, when motor cars and the Eiffel Tower were young and Picasso was painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon."

There's something magically romantic at the mental image of that thought.

[Prufrock]

Viennese cafés and Parisian wine-bars or Wetherspoons?

[William the White]

What Crayons said

Naah. Crayons dealt with academic writing - a sub genre of literature if ever there was one.

And, you know, you'd have to get through an awful lot of exhibition catalogues to spot stuff as obscurantist as the Buchioh-of-Harvard he's fished out. I know. I've read a lot. (Though even the Buchioh can be unpacked and understood if you have the patience).

And, in any case, you'd be hard pushed to say that kind of writing is what 'puts people off'... hardly anyone reads it, and those that do have a professional obligation or are driven by the 'publish or perish' terror regime of the academic world.

I was lucky, my subject meant that my creative work counted. Academic critics have it harder. Though not as hard as their students who have to read it.

[William the White]

Viennese cafés and Parisian wine-bars or Wetherspoons?

Do these no longer exist? I've never been to Vienna, and not for decades to Paris.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

What are we debating?

Is there really some doubt over whether a huge amount of overwrought nonsense is written about art today?

Just watch all of Alistair Gentry's videos! http://vimeo.com/alistairgentry" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[William the White]

What are we debating?

Is there really some doubt over whether a huge amount of overwrought nonsense is written about art today?

Just watch all of Alistair Gentry's videos! http://vimeo.com/alistairgentry" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I'm in favour of clear writing about art. I'm hostile to the obscurantist.

But this 'debate' is entirely tangential to what is interesting and important about art and artists. I'm sorry for my part in starting it.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

I'm hostile to the obscurantist.

You must see that a lot of writing about art falls into this category?

There has been a lot of talk about 'artspeak' or 'International Art English' in the last couple of years as a backlash against the situation.

Let me try this press release on a Koons egg on you: http://www.christies.com/presscenter/pd ... B_2014.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Cracked Egg (Magenta) plays with the fragile nature of the egg to explore themes of the ephemeral and the eternal. The fragments of shell emphasize the fusion of opposites, appearing simultaneously organic and synthetic, fragile and resilient. To contrast the vulnerability of the eggshell, Koons managed to perfect casting techniques that result in a mirror-sheen surface that is virtually indestructible. As the artist explains, “I was interested in the dialogue with nature and aspects of the eternal, the here and now, the physical with the ephemeral... the symmetrical and asymmetrical, a sense of the fertile …”

In just this one paragraph we can see a whole range of the generic phrases that one needs to create contemporary art guff: 'explore themes'; 'fusion'; 'simultaneously'; 'contrast'; 'dialogue'. These are the key words any guff sentence needs, because they allow you to do the old art guff trick of combining opposites - 'the symmetrical and asymmetrical' - which sounds terrifically learned, but of course says nothing of any substance at all.

[William the White]

I'm hostile to the obscurantist.

You must see that a lot of writing about art falls into this category?

There has been a lot of talk about 'artspeak' or 'International Art English' in the last couple of years as a backlash against the situation.

Let me try this press release on a Koons egg on you: http://www.christies.com/presscenter/pd ... B_2014.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Cracked Egg (Magenta) plays with the fragile nature of the egg to explore themes of the ephemeral and the eternal. The fragments of shell emphasize the fusion of opposites, appearing simultaneously organic and synthetic, fragile and resilient. To contrast the vulnerability of the eggshell, Koons managed to perfect casting techniques that result in a mirror-sheen surface that is virtually indestructible. As the artist explains, “I was interested in the dialogue with nature and aspects of the eternal, the here and now, the physical with the ephemeral... the symmetrical and asymmetrical, a sense of the fertile …”

In just this one paragraph we can see a whole range of the generic phrases that one needs to create contemporary art guff: 'explore themes'; 'fusion'; 'simultaneously'; 'contrast'; 'dialogue'. These are the key words any guff sentence needs, because they allow you to do the old art guff trick of combining opposites - 'the symmetrical and asymmetrical' - which sounds terrifically learned, but of course says nothing of any substance at all.

My starting point would always be does it help me to understand/appreciate the work of art in question. I don't know the work of art in question, and, clearly, the photo can't do justice to a work of this size. Did you get to see it?

My suspicion though, is that the description is guff...

But not as guff as 'my two year old could do that'.

[TANGODANCER]

My starting point would always be does it help me to understand/appreciate the work of art in question. I don't know the work of art in question, and, clearly, the photo can't do justice to a work of this size. Did you get to see it? My suspicion though, is that the description is guff... But not as guff as 'my two year old could do that'.

But surely there's an element of how such a work comes across to the viewer rather than the artist or a critic who has either spoken to the artist and is repeating his words (as in Mummy's example) or is commenting on such, or , in the case of posthumous works, just passing personal views which might well conflict completely with said viewer's version of what they see? Do people suddenly get Road to Damascus enlightenment when standing in front of a red square, or do they need the artists to tell them it's a red square? Or do they possibly just shrug and say, "Well, it's a painted red square, so....? ". The point I'm making is, I suppose, that an opinion of something seen doesn't really change much despite what the artist or critics say. It's still down to the viewer/buyer etc. Art bought because of the artist's name is no sort of art at all for me. Van Gogh, who never sold a painting in his life except as an odd exchange for food and drink etc, and died in poverty, is a real example of market created art. The same paintings, once worth a hunk of cheese and a bottle of cheap wine, now sell for multi-millions. As far as I know, he never explained too much about his art to anyone. As a painting, how much would "Sunflowers" a painting that thousands of modern artists could better, be worth in reality if done today? The bit of paint that makes the money is the word "Vincent" on the bottom. That's little to do with art and very much to do with money.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

As far as I know, he never explained too much about his art to anyone.

I hate to contradict you, Tango, but Vincent van Gogh wrote more explanations about his art in his many hundreds of letters, most of which survive, than just about any other artist I can think of.

[TANGODANCER]

As far as I know, he never explained too much about his art to anyone.

I hate to contradict you, Tango, but Vincent van Gogh wrote more explanations about his art in his many hundreds of letters, most of which survive, than just about any other artist I can think of.

Really? So, let's clarify "explained his art". Since the bulk of the letters were to his brother, and many others to artist friends, that doesn't really compare with an artist today explaining an abstract creation to critics and devotees. No comparison at all. Van Gogh's paintings hardly need much explaining despite his mental struggles, artistic frustrations and early death. Have to go out now but I'd be happy to continue later....

[bobo the clown]

Have to go out now but I'd be happy to continue later....

Really ?

You are a glutton for punishment Tangs.

[TANGODANCER]

Have to go out now but I'd be happy to continue later....

Really ?
You are a glutton for punishment Tangs.

Nah, the debate's friendly enough, and not a comparison factor really.