The world of art-criticism is a funny old one, but one that takes itself very seriously. I just love the sheer irony of strongly objecting in earnest to the fact that something that is, whatever language one uses, simply not to one's taste, is being taken seriously, but being completely insensible to the fact that in having such strong views about the work(s) in question, one is taking them more seriously than anyone else.
We've all got opinions on visual culture and art. Even if the best you can say in the way of art criticism is "I know what I like", and even if what you like is the still-life by an unknown Sunday painter in your dentist's waiting room, you're aesthetically active and critical.
A diversity of tastes is inevitable and furthermore good. And calm acceptance of the eternity of this truth would seem the best approach to see you through life. But not everybody agrees - there are some very forceful, vocal characters who have their very particular tastes that they consider to be the most refined, and want everyone to share them. It's those forceful, vocal characters who really bug me. They'll insist that those of us who don't share their views are either faking their alleged tastes (Emperor's New Clothes - oh Lord how I hate that expression) or are existing on some sort of lower aesthetic, or even moral plane. Now that's got to be an unhealthy way of looking at things.
Having a moral panic-attack about art has to be one of the most pointless things you can do. Art changes as society does and every change is going to met by critics with that archetypal response that's a mixture of outrage, indignation and dismay at the dreadful direction that this terrible art points society in. History attests to this angry lot being just an annoying, but thankfully laughable fact of life - like explosive diarrhoeah, not some mighty steering-wheel of visual culture. Sure, they sometimes get their way for a while (the most extreme examples of censorship being the most obvious ones), but it doesn't last. Everything they hate and rail against will most likely end up becoming normalised. In the words of Ellis in No Country for Old Men, "You can't stop what's coming." So the problem is not just that we don't want to listen to these people, it's that if we can see the bigger picture, with (token) respect to them, we know better.
Just as with all applications of uptightness, there are different strengths and strains of aesthetic uptightness. Professor Roger Scruton, the traditionalist philosopher and art-critic, clearly only sees true purity, beauty, virtue etc. in the Western Classical traditions. Very much the archetypal conservative dreamer, stuck in a sickly glorious, orderly fantasy world. And then there's Australian art-critic Robert Hughes, who at first glance seems more progressive than Scruton, and in some ways surely is - he understands and champions the radical art movements of the 20th century - but is savagely opinionated and selective in the types of progress he can tolerate being nurtured.
Scruton believes that by turning away from (his idea of) beauty, we are putting ourselves in a dangerous position. Predictably, you can find his ideals in Western Classical traditions, as I mentioned earlier. Put simply, that visual language is the most sophisticated one out there, and elevates us to the highest heights, but now in shifting our admiration to those roguish upstarts who flatly refuse to have any truck with the old traditions and ideals, we're happily sloshing about in s**t, worshiping the wrong gods.
Apart from the obvious boringness of the prospect of an eternity that only nurtures one very narrow visual voice, there is the glaring issue of art always responding to social questions and norms, and even by reinforcing ugly prejudices. We could not be producing the same type of work we did 200 years ago, because we think differently now, we're flexing a different set of mental muscles. Some of the most accomplished and wonderful works from the past were made by people whose worldviews are completely outdated and limited to their comparatively narrow experiences of the world. Indeed those works can only have been made under those conditions. There wouldn't be much point in sculpting Greek gods in the name of art anymore, because not only has it already been done, but we're drawing from different sources now. What once seemed wondrous and inspiring now seems irrelevant and lofty. Our set of truths has shifted. We know more about the world and there's no going back. The things we feel urged to comment upon are different, as is the way we feel urged to comment on them. We can't unlearn all we've learnt just so that we can revert to the visual cultures of certain chapters of our past. Enjoy the wonderful work that was made long ago, but don't ask for more, because there's so much more that would come along with that and so much more that'd be taken away.
Whereas artists used to strive bring dignity and pathos to classical subjects through idealised figurative work, Scruton would say, now we prefer meaningless ugliness that sets about to disgust and draw attention to the artist. He's right to a point - there is a lot of rebellion of the more childish, punkish variety in art today. You won't win any prizes for pointing out that many conceptual artists are taking the mick. It's easy to see the current prevalence of that class of attention-seeking, image-conscious, confident youngsters who fancy themselves as creatives and thinkers, but really can't back it up. And it's easy to see that work that shocked in the past more often had more to back it up than shock-value. Manet wanted to shock, but he was a hell of a painter. You don't find yourself thinking "OK, it's shocking and?" because his work operates on more levels (and because it's not shocking anymore). But unlike all the Scrutons and the Hugheses I don't lose any sleep over the existence of those fashionable upstarts, or the publicity of their work. Why try to stop them or even belittle them? They're doing their thing, it may not always be my thing, but I've got no valid reasons to object to it. In fact sometimes I'll find myself warming to some of that stuff I once positively hated. It happens. It's part of being human, you don't stay in one place forever, you renew and reassess and you grow as a result.
Robert Hughes doesn't like or get Jeff Koons. I don't know if I get him all the time either, but I do like a lot of his work. Hughes will probably be far more articulate in his arguments against Koons than I will be in attempting to articulate why I like so many pieces by him, but that doesn't matter. I just like those works because I do. Something in them appeals to me, says something to me, amuses me. But does it matter that I can't explain myself any better? Do I need to set about cleverly proving how his work is good and why I like it, or run the risk of being seen as some tragic symptom of a perceived collective moral or aesthetic decline?
E. H. Gombrich, who is everything a person with a critical mind should be and more, writes that there aren't any wrong reasons for liking a piece of art but that there can be wrong reasons for disliking one. I think that is so true. The very best way to get people interested in a subject, as Gombrich is clearly aware, is by actively refraining from prejudicing them - letting them look and decide for themselves without the burden of being ridiculous for being drawn to the "wrong" thing.
Although Gombrich's canon of comentary is inevitably limited to what he saw during his lifetime, a mind like his would suit any period. He was clearly ready for anything, ready to try to understand the unfamiliar as best he could. An exemplary attitude. I'd advise any young person with an interest in art who's after a serious book that won't assume they know anything about art to start with, but won't talk down to them either, to check out his The Story of Art. The optimistic tone of the last sentence of that book "As for the Art of the future, who knows?" says it all - Gombrich doesn't just want to pass on knowledge, but to engender an attitude of excitement, curiosity and eagerness in the young particularly. And that is exactly what we need from a teacher. The more universal attitudes like that become, the healthier a place the world will be.
The types of critics and philosophers I'm railing against here are intelligent and learned, far more than I, so I wonder why they're not immune to quite childish misgivings about things they don't understand or that seem to disturb their singular visions or comfort-zones. Perhaps they need to listen to The Times they are a'Changin', paying extra attention to the lyrics that point a massive flashing arrow at them; "Don't criticise what you can't understand". And I'm not talking about understanding the artwork itself, I'm not pretending to be capable of profound responses to pieces that seem like rubbish to everyone else. It doesn't matter if the work leaves you stultified and unimpressed, but what's important is to stop fearing it any more than you'd fear a teenager's rebellious attitude, just look at it in the same terms, see it for what it is. Visual culture is exploring its freedoms and seeing how far it can go, that's all. Soon it'll be doing something else, suited to different tastes.
The issue of Tracy Emin's Unmade Bed had everyone mouthing off. Ok, so that piece doesn't really speak to me or attract me. But that doesn't matter. I won't dismiss that some people might get something out of it that I don't. If she wants to go public with her troubled life and prolific sex-life in the form of a piece of visual communication, why can't she? Is it not an innocent and harmless excercise? She's not "setting a standard" or "sending out the wrong message", or whatever those angry, confused people think she's doing. Nor is she a part of some cult of ugliness, she's just doing what she does, being herself, being free.
More significantly Emin is not attacking or being unkind to anyone. On that note in fact, it's strange that the people get so indignant and beetroot-faced about Emin make no motion in the way of condemning those figures in the limelight who are actually making their living being as unpleasant as they can toward people, short of actually physically assaulting them, so that the general public can laugh with them and share their cavalier attitude towards humanity.
At least Hughes takes the trouble to look at the rest of Emin's work before slating it. So many people (although to be fair not art-orientated people) seem to think her entire canon is the Unmade Bed. I like a lot of that other work he hates, like the textiles. I think they're original, heartfelt and often beautiful. And there's no reason I shouldn't. I am not some uncultured yahoo with a degenerate fetish for ugliness because I like them. The fact that something proudly sits outside our received notions of taste and beauty doesn't make it something bad or not worthy of our enjoyment.
The irony is that it's not that the admirers can't see that Tracy Emin's Unmade Bed (I'm using that piece as an easy example of radical artistic expression - this applies to a lot of other stuff) is just an unmade bed - it seems that those who rail against it are the confused ones. They think people must be putting up some charade that they are are gathering round a piece of trash pretending it's profound and beautiful. There's no deception, we know it's not a Velazquez painting, nor are we judging it with the same criteria as we would one. And that work that offends them so much isn't pushing out the work they like, it's being offered up as well. If it's not for you, there are as many places as ever to find what you do like.
But the strange thing about Hughes, who points out, with scornful relish, that Emin misspelled the word "beautiful" on one of her textiles is that, as I said earlier, he's got some progressive views. Unlike Scruton, who is unapologetically narrow-minded, Hughes is capable of appreciating the fruits of the most experimental movements of the 20th century, like cubism. I don't understand this - he can see that the critics who thought Picasso was making a mockery of art and all that nonsense were quite silly and missing the point, yet he doesn't see that he might be doing exactly the same thing with Emin or Koons. If you champion some of the most radical art the world has seen, surely you're an open-minded sort of person who'd be only too happy to behold bold new approaches emerging. Apparently not. Hughes serves brilliantly to remind us of the strange contradictions of the human condition. Maybe that's his unwitting purpose in life.
I have heard Hughes very presumptuously speaking for dead artists with remarks along the lines of "Picasso would have hated this". I don't use the word 'presumptuous' lightly. To attempt to bolster your argument with opinions that were never had by creative visionaries who have proven themselves more forward thinking than yourself is just a bit foolhardy. I feel inclined to believe that Picasso would actually if anything be applauding in his grave, given his obvious views on creative reinvention. But I'm speaking for a dead man now, so I can't really win there.
What annoys me particularly is that some of these pedants, particularly dinosaurs of the Scruton school, single out all the usual controversial figures like Emin and Hirst as typifying the grim direction society is going in. Of course they'll say those artists aren't just doing that, they've got to actually be taking us by the hand and leading us into the depths of iniquity. "Immoral acts will happen in our streets if we don't stop these rogues with their infectious grotequities!" is very much the tone. Well I've got news for those dinosaurs; Fine Artists don't actually have much sway in the way we live our lives. Fine Art is quite a marginal, exclusive affair that just occasionally causes little sparks of hysteria that get all the clockwork knuckleheads angrily barking and frothing at the mouth. Although responsive to cultural phenomena, norms, etc. Art doesn't really do much in the way of making us reason and behave in ways we wouldn't do otherwise, the influence is very limited. And crucially those who are immersed in that world - practitioners and spectators - are likely to be among the most harmless in our society, so putting deliberately controversial or shocking works in the public domain really isn't like giving a toddler a gun. It's the all-encompassing, all-consuming vessel of popular-culture that we should be worrying about.
