"If you can say it... Why paint it?" A review of the key concepts of Contemporary Art: Is art cool?!?

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Is art cool?!?

Posted by seiinod at 11:35 PM

December, end of the year, time for assessments. Everybody in the art world seems to agree that Doris Salcedo's crack in the Tate gallery and Damien Hirst's diamond skull are the artworks of the year.

I say fair enough... Did you see this crack? Did you see this skull? amazing aren't they?!!

The first is a work commissioned by the Tate gallery and is only viewable in Tate modern because it's part of it. This 548ft crack called Shibboleth is here to show how the foundations of the contemporary art world are fragile. Cracking the ground floor of the HUGE turbine hall of the Tate modern was particularly clever in this sense: Tate modern is one of the biggest touristic attractions in London, one of the coolest brand (15th on the coolbrands classification... Do not believe me? Check yourself: http://www.superbrands.uk.com/pdfs/CB%20-%20Press%20Release%20-%20Announcement%20-%20Final.pdf) and a centre of gravity for the contemporary art. Cracking its foundation suggests that the contemporary art culture was built upon colonialist values and cultural imposition. "Shibboleth asks questions about the interaction of sculpture and space, about architecture and the values it enshrines, and about the shaky ideological foundations on which Western notions of modernity are built" in Salcedo's own words.

Although the media criticize on the one hand that visitors keep on asking to the staff "how did the artist do that?!" and keep on falling in the crack... (A dozen of accidents reported!); on the other hand, to quote Jonathan Jones from the Guardian Art blog "it is a fissure that doesn't really threaten anything or anyone".

Moreover, he says "Modern art has now become the universal culture of Britain's middle class, of all ages. Yet when a really provocative and powerful contemporary work appears - I'm talking about Damien Hirst's diamond skull - the middle class runs for cover, disturbed by the impossibility of reducing this disturbing object to a liberal platitude".

Photograph: Getty

And here comes our second Artwork: Damien Hirst's Diamond Skull. For me there is nothing controversial about it. I can imagine that it may shake the common mood but honestly, having a look back in the 90's on Tracey Emin's bed, it may suffer the comparison. Remember, she brought her own bed covered of alcohol, germs and traces of her sexual activity... In Saatchi's gallery. Ok! Ok! Nothing to do with the skull, but that rocked! didn't it?

My Bed by Tracey Emin, 1998. Photograph: courtesy Jay Jopling/White Cube.

Here lies the problem. Contemporary art became popular, fashionable, cool (look at this whole blog: I do not think I m the first writing a blog about contemporary art, believing that my view got the spark that will lead me to a Worldwide Web rapid success!) And my generation acknowledged the existence of contemporary art with artists like Emin, Chapman brothers and a pope crushed by a rock came from space. In fact my first memorable artwork was the empty room presented for the Turner Prize by Martin Creed (Work No. 227: The lights going on and off 2000 (installation at Tate Britain)5 seconds on/5 seconds off, Edition 2/electrical time). In fact I found it controversial enough to bring it on the top of my hobby list... Can you imagine now why a skull and diamonds are not controversial to me? Is it controversial to you?