VLADIMIR:
- We're in no danger of ever thinking any more.
- ESTRAGON:
- Then what are we complaining about?
- [S.Beckett Waiting for Godot Act 2]
I see two large
wheels trampling meanings underneath. One is flattening,emptying art
in art and another is embossing “art” everywhere else. What an
apocalyptic sight.
There was a gradual removal of art from
paintings,sculptures or music. Seems that the calamitous process
started right about the time that German Neue Sachtlichkeit,Novecento
movement in Italy died and Magical Realism {Germany and USA] has
been kept at remote margins. It happened roughly
between 1940s and 1950s. The art exhibited,promoted and made
central resolutely was removing any traces what up till then was
understood as art. It was not replaced by different art: it was
replaced by provocations without art
.
Soon after the very
act of placing something inside of the
charmed space of “art gallery”,”art museum” was and is now
offered as art. In any past of our culture nobody would argue that a
naked woman standing in art gallery is art. Why? Were they bound by
their cultural horizon and could not open their minds to see naked
woman as “installation”? Or,as I believe, all those previous
generations of art lovers were united by one common understanding of
meaning of the word “art”? There is
nothing “limiting” in insisting that only “art” is art just
as only clouds are clouds. Someone could argue that art is much more
nebulous than clouds and that smoke is not nebulous enough to be a
cloud,while some crafts may be art. Smoke of certain density
graduates to a cloud and craft sometimes shows the layer of “pure
intentionality” associated with art. True,but then such smoke is
fully a cloud and such craft is simply a piece of art. There is no
ambiguity there. The „ambiguity” is a mental
tic,an automatic habitual reaction as cheap as
seeing „paradoxes” everywhere.
As art
is replaced by all manner of junk and presented as art -another
phenomenon is spreading in all directions. What in the past has been
a well respected,even admired craft of cooking became art of
cooking.Rose gardening is now art of rose-gardening.There is,sorry to
say art of love-making and „art of manliness”,not far from „art
of living”.Not a skill of successful living, not simply
„living”,but a phoney ,elevated „art” made of rhythmic
breathing,taking sustenance and removal of waste.Could it be that
now just about any activity is in danger of being wrapped in pink
tissue and handed back to us with accompanying brochure as „Art
of...fill in the blank”?
Perhaps these two
phenomena are not just contemporaneous but indeed obscenely
intertwined. When anything that is not art can be
exhibited,collected,valued as if it was art,than the deflation of
meaning would allow for anything outside of art to claim
that,now worthless faux-elevation.
Clarity demands that we distinguish art from craft and skills and
keep them within their appointed meanings..When one is looking at a
earthenware pot presented as „art” its lack of serious
craftsmanship is overlooked and it would seem rude,even irrelevant
to observe that as a piece of craft is embarrassing.As „art” is,of
course, „great”. There is three reasons for this corruption.One: a
well made pot would cost at most some tens of dollars.The same pot as
„object'art” has a price in hundreds or more.Second reason is
status. Many potters are not interested in very demanding craft of
its discipline.As „artists” they are elevated into a status of
inspired visionaries whose spirits are too ascending to bother with
craftsmanship.There is also a third reason why nearly anything is
unaccountably „art”.It is in the air,it is in the water -it is on
all sides: bombast,over-sizing,over-praising,adding elevator shoes to
everything.Crass salesmanship infects entire social exchange.If only
what we just called „great” would ever deserve to be almost good.
