The older I get, the less I'm sure of. But one thing I do know is this: the things you love and admire in the first part of your life will change as you get older. And that applies especially to art.
As a teenager, I loved the Impressionists, progressive rock music, and anything in 'Movements in Art since 1945', by Edward Lucie Smith. I thought 20th century art was the pinnacle of human artistic achievement. Especially Surrealism. Those wacky funsters with their melting clocks.
I thought 'Lord Of The Rings' was a book I would reread every year. I thought H.P.Lovecraft was a great writer. I thought Emerson, Lake and Palmer made great albums. I thought, in short, a lot of things that turned out to be other than correct.
Now every time I see contemporary art, I judge it by one simple question: assuming I had the money, would I buy this to hang on my wall?
I judge the artists by an even simpler question: could this person draw a horse? (I call it the horsey test. If the artist can draw a convincing horse from life, I'm interested. If they can't, maybe they should take up window dressing or something.)
It's okay to judge art by what you see. Most impressionist paintings are horrid little daubs. Some are world class keepers. Having the courage to openly say which, in your opinion, is which, is something that comes with age.
Most contemporary art is achingly horrible. Being brave enough to even consider that, let alone say it, when you're a young student, whose tutor may well be producing the very work they secretly despise, whose college degree may be graded by someone whose work they think is bad, is a rarity.
Which means this dreadful round goes on and on. In the UK, I believe there are something like 40 art colleges.
Assume they each take in 25 fine art students every year on a degree course. That means there are 1000 fine art students graduating every year, students who may have gained no useful skills during their 3 or 4 year course; whose work may be so unappealing to any potential collector that they stand no chance of making a living from selling it; who have been trained to hold skills like life drawing and figurative painting in contempt; who stand no
chance of employment, in other words, outside the very system that created them - the art colleges. Where through artist in residence schemes and part time tutor vacancies, some of them may scrape a living until they luck into a full time tutor post.
But only if they subscribe to this unspoken dogma of art for art's sake, which puts all contemporary art beyond any kind of criticism. Because if you say one word against it, you are immediately labelled as a philistine, or compared to the Nazis who organized the exhibitions of degenerate art. There is, in short, no discourse allowed around this question.
And where no discourse is allowed, of course, is the very spot where it should be taking place.
So here are some questions you might care to think over.
1 Who actually benefits from contemporary art?
Reputations are built and destroyed on whim, and the value of an artist's work can soar or plummet accordingly. Read $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art to get some illuminating views on the art market of today. It doesn't really have much to do with art.
2 Should I send my child to art college? They love painting.
If they love painting and want to learn how to do it well, let them take a look here. They may never get a museum show, but at least they'll be able to make a good living. Plus they'll learn Italian. Which will get them laid.
3 When the subversion that contemporary art is based upon has become institutionalized and mainstream, is it time to take it out the back and shoot it?
Slightly loaded question, but it's pertinent. Picasso finished the demolition job that the Post Impressionists started on Western Art. Which crisis was probably caused by the development of photography. What was the point of taking hours to produce a still image when a box could do the same thing in seconds, the only skill required being the ability to press a button?
So art turned inward, where the camera could not follow. So far inward that it lost its way, becoming conceptual rather than perceptual. And now it ploughs this tedious furrow every year, with young artists settling into their recognizable ruts: there's the girl who makes fey, elfin frameworks with butterflies; here's a young man who makes enormous sculptures with unusual materials; here's another who splashes paint about on huge canvases. On and on. With no end in sight, and a dwindling interest all around.
Even the ability to shock has been blunted by over use. Want to be shocked? Just log on to some of the darker corners of the internet. No need to check out the latest Crabstock twins installation.
And all along, unseen, for the most part, and never spoken of, artists have been quietly turning out paintings that don't shrink from exhibiting skill and passion. Art that you would hang on your wall. By artists who could pass the horsey test.
You will never see their work in any book on contemporary art. Not until the tide turns, anyway.
Good news? It's about that time.
Good news? It's about that time.
