"If you can say it... Why paint it?" A review of the key concepts of Contemporary Art

In the last post, I introduced a discussion based on an article released in the Arts Newspaper, that eventually led (and currently continue to lead) to a debate about the art world, the artist, provocation, context and many other interesting issues.
I'd like to focus on a point of the debate related to the way the initial article was written in the Art Newspaper because I believe it is relevant to explore the way cultural differences affect the contemporary art world in general.

This all starts with the following comment:

9.5.08 Jonathan San Francisco

How many of us felt the same in front of an art-related text, an introduction to a specific artist or an exhibition book/review? To be honest, if you do your first steps in the contemporary art world, it sounds like a foreign language!

To this first comment, a second writer adds:

What the writer is obscuring with his "art-speak" is that the videos featured animals being battered to death, in some cases by the artist, in the name of art. I saw the exhibit and was sickened and I've worked in hospitals all my life. What I saw when the exhibit was pulled was a demand, if you will, for ethical, humanistic and humane values rather than an "anything goes in the name of building my career." If the video had shown the torture of humans done as an art form there would have been no mistaking its brutality. I realize that most of us eat meat and that animals are usually not killed in a humane way but this exhibit wasn't about that. It was about promoting a career by using gruesome and controversial imagery.

Eventually, a third writer, visibly more concerned by what happens in the contemporary art sphere, writes:

9.5.08 Nancy San Francisco, CA

My 2¢ in response to the previous comments. Firstly, what is "art-speak"? When I hear someone use that term it always feels as though they are simply trying to dismiss the argument. This is a venue for art writing and sometimes complex and nuanced ideas require like language. Do we deride economists, carpenters or anyone that has a vernacular/vocabulary/language that we have trouble deciphering?

[...] I also wonder if Nacy's analysis that the artist is "promoting a career by using gruesome and controversial imagery" is based on an understanding of the work in context of his entire body of work/career, or simply on a knee jerk reaction and subjective view of contemporary art and artists.

9.5.08 josh Oakland

This actually makes a point here, the 'knee-jerk reference was obviously not compulsory but demonstrates a certain passion in the debate...! "This is a venue for art writing and sometimes complex and nuanced ideas require like language. Do we deride economists, carpenters or anyone that has a vernacular/vocabulary/language that we have trouble deciphering?" is a wise comment but...

If you are a regular reader of these blog lines, or if you have a foot into contemporary art world as a hobby or as professional, you've probably acknowledge all the postmodernist theoretical background and would probably agree with this third writer. However a contradiction lays just there:
On the first hand, contemporary art is over mediatised and becomes increasingly popular. If not in a art-specific media, contemporary art is often introduced to the mass culture through the celebrities who bought or sold famous artworks, big amounts of cash exchanged and sometimes glittering cocktails and parties to celebrate prizes.
On the second hand, rich of a solid theoretical background and a more and more complex history of the Art and the interactions between sub-genres; contemporary art becomes less and less accessible to the newcomer but more and more interesting in my opinion although i agree that we can find the best, the worst and too often... the worst.

This is not just about the words to describe it! This is way more than just this! I am talking about visual vocabulary, the visual semantic rules and cultural history associated; the postmodernist grammar and conjugation system, which binds the artist, artworks and viewers altogether to create meaning with a unique sense of the tenses dialectic...
Therefore, how come a newcomer who never really learned this foreign language could possibly understand such complex artworks as Jim Beam JB Turner Train from Jeff Koons? Try to explain to a newcomer that this stainless steel train, filled with Bourbon is a masterpiece and talks about class, power and the contemporary art market?
Culturally, I know that French and English people use to consider that visual art has to be explicit and does not have to be decoded and would bet that it is the same in a lot more countries, but people have to learn how to read an image in the same way that we learn how to read a text. As might be expected, people are more attracted by literature, more than visual art and contemporary art particularly. A RadioFrance Internet article, written by Hélène Chevallier in 2005, describes a change within museum exhibition policies to try to solve this problem with some interventions at school, dialogues with artists and accompaniment of the visitors. In the same article, the public services manager of Lyon’s Biennial Turgaut E., argue that “it is easy to consider young people as the next generation of audience and have the keys of the future of contemporary art, but that’s really important to sensitise them as young as possible. If we give them the opportunity to see more contemporary artworks, they will be not totally disoriented when they will be adults!”. The International Council of Museums, uses in Marketing the Arts, the term “edutainment”. They proposed to include guided tours and extra-mural works as an integral part of the exhibition project building.
This definitely is a first step, although I hate when interactivity becomes compulsory in a growing number of museums...
The key lays therefore in the education process... When would we see a fully recognised picture analysis as an exam for the GCSE, baccalaureate or any equivalent?