[BretLudwig]

Art and Articulation in the Battle for Ideas
From the desk of A. Millar on Mon, 2008-04-28 11:38

"Sooner or later a certain type of pop singer turns his hand to art.
Such an entertainer believes himself profound, intellectually advanced,
risqué. No doubt he recognizes that there is something inherently silly
about the rhyming of some vague, ephemeral, political message. Through art
he is able to associate himself with a history of great ideas, and great
intellectual and religious movements that have shaped our world.

But he invariably fails in his mission to make any real mark, or to
articulate any important message. Ten years ago I was disappointed by a
showing of David Bowies paintings at a gallery in Londons Cork
Street. There was one good work €“ a small portrait in a somewhat
Impressionist style €“ and this was the only one not for sale. This week,
Pete Dohertys art went on display at the Chappe Gallery in the
Montmartre district of Paris. Doherty is best known as the lead singer of
Britains Babyshambles band, drug addict, and voice of Rock against
Racism. His style of dress €“ which I can only describe as a cross
between Boy George and Wurzel Gummidge €“ betrays an individual who
should never have dabbled in visual art, but, alas, he has.

His works published in The Daily Mail this week, show a picture of a
topless Doherty, covered with the symbols of swastika and Star of David,
some sketches of very poor quality, and a syringe stuck in a canvass, with
Dohertys signature trailing from it. The Daily Mail, was apparently
shocked enough by all of this to ask readers, €œis this the most
disgusting art exhibition ever?€� The answer for those of us who have
been around the block a few times is surely, €œno,€� and this is the
real indictment of such €œart.€�

During the first half of the twentieth century artists and writers risked
everything in criticizing one dictatorship or another. Likewise, love or
hate Picasso or Dali among others, they were pushing the boundaries of
artistic style. They were innovators, and genuinely peculiar men. Still
today there are some interesting living, figurative artists, such as the
Norwegian painter, Odd Nerdrum, or German, Gerhard Richter. Their work may
be disturbing, but it is well executed, and draws on the tradition of art.
Nor, in contrast to popular conception, is all abstract art rubbish. The
€œenvironmental art€� of British artists Andy Goldsworthy and Richard
Long are uncluttered and unpretentious reflections of man and nature, that
owe their aesthetics to both the natural world and to Western and Eastern
artistic traditions.

Art was also one battleground in the war of political ideologies. Dali was
firmly on Spains Right, and his work was infused with Catholicism and
alchemy; Picasso lent his support, to some extent, to the Communists, who
usually demanded figurative art that anyone could understand without
interpretation. The Fascists of Italy were unsure whether to make
figurative or Futurist art official. Today, it is considered a truism that
Western artists are liberal and that art must also be liberal, but, for too
many, a better description might be bourgeois. Despite the ugliness of
Dohertys €œart€� it is an expression of the banal, of the frustrated
boy from the suburb who was the best at his schools art class. Art that
uses the swastika and the Star of David is meant to be dangerous, but
Dohertys is not, because it does not articulate anything except self
absorption and, perhaps, self pity.

The old adage that €œa picture says a thousand words€� is rarely true
today. Art schools and critics talk positively of €œambiguity.€� Fine
art, since the emergence of abstract painting, has endeavored to
articulate nothing definite lest one patron might be offended or a
potential client put off by the thought that he may be about to hang a
political message in his living room or the lobby of his office. Yet,
€œartists€� from Doherty to Jan Fabre are becoming ever more irrelevant,
ever more middle class, even as they protest their outrageous newness.

The internet has changed everything in recent years. It is the new
battlefield of ideas, where a thousand words can be read by a thousand,
ten thousand, or a hundred thousand in a short space of time. Blogs and
writings of every political, intellectual, and religious stripe are being
constantly updated, and bounced around €œthe net€� almost
instantaneously. In contrast, Dohertys scribbled art looks inarticulate
and out of date, even though it was only recently produced. And Fabres
art also looks as if it belongs to another era, its message perhaps
crafted for the Cold War era.

As most galleries and museum are now online, and as new artistic
web-technology emerges, the internet may not only help to preserve the
classical works of fine art, but also to create new art or aesthetics
which compliment text, rather than seeking to replace it. In an era of new
intellectual competition, in which free speech seems to be eroding in
Europe, that may prove essential."

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3207
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4393


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