it is easier to criticize than to create, i believe. but since i am an artist myself, creating is not my problem, although it can be arduous and painstaking at times.
still, criticizing other artists is not my favourite pastime. i prefer to criticize museums, galleries, popular media, society, god, the world, the moon, the climate, my family (in private), etc...
even when i do not really appreciate a work of art, usually i try to find some merit in whatever effort has been made by the artist. but also i have these recurrent episodes where i berate myself for being altogether too soft and clement, and i find this to especially occur when i have seen yet another `great' work of conceptual art in which the contemporary art scene is being ridiculed or in which some other shallow message is being heralded as the ultimate in the artistic development of man...
and my god, these conceptual people are everywhere! perhaps not so amazing, since any halfwitted primate can come up with some superficial `shocking!' `mocking!' `rocking!' concept the depth of which leaves us all agape! like having a gallerist walk around for a month in a costume resembling a penis...well, NOW we're talking art!
oh no, frank, you misunderstand. it's not a teenage prank, it is a criticism of the fact that the modern art world is ruled by teenage pranksters....so you see it's much deeper than it might seem, and you have to see his whole oeuvre, which is all absurdistic and criticizing and well, so FUNNY!
actually i don't mind humor one bit...but does one classify the superficial jokes of a stand-up comedian as great literature? i KNOW that stand-up comedians are more appreciated than great literature, and i even do not criticize this, but i do mind if the library starts to get filled with the collected jokes of john howards and howard johns and...to the extent where i cannot get a real modern writer any longer.
and this is what is happening in my perception in the art world. conceptual art is an easy way to facilitate the take-over of art by entertainment. i like entertainment to a liberal extent, but i dislike entertainment being more important than real issues.
now i remember that i made two conceptual sculptures which probably would illustrate some of my point (i'm working on numbers 3 and 4, but i've been at them for 3 years now and they still aren't anywhere near completion). perhaps i'll put them up in the next post.
nieuwjaarswens voor allen
8 years ago
