Views on Contemporary Art

Part 1: Critique of “Enough”
Earlier this month I reflected on a painting I encountered during the last gallery installation I assisted with which features artwork by local university students. This “painting” was created by local artist Zet Gold and is probably titled what was written in the middle of it; “enough”.

Originally I wasn’t going to concern myself with what I saw at the gallery and let the painting fade from my memory. However, the director of the organization that sponsors these students asked me questions regarding the installation (as she wasn’t there to assist for business reasons) and I felt I had to bring up the painting. Assuming the painting went through a jury selection process like the other paintings do for exhibitions, I asked how the “enough” painting made it through selection. I was told the university exhibition was the only exhibition that featured paintings that didn’t go through the same selection process as the paintings for other exhibitions. I was relieved to know this. However, this brought up many concerns regarding contemporary art, particularly works created by university/institution students.

I was hoping “enough” was simply a painting created to open up discussion regarding the lack of expression and philosophy created by many younger modern artists. I was hoping this painting was intended to create slight offense to other artists/art critics in the same sense loaded questions are used to disrupt the flow of a debate. Perhaps there are patterns throughout her works I am missing that can give more meaning to her paintings. Maybe she has an unstated appreciation for simplicity. Maybe there is something I must discover about the artist which is essential for understanding her artwork. I’d like to think there is mystery to this artist. But I’m confident this “mystery” is more of a result of comfort in banality than a puzzle intended to stimulate interest in the artist/artwork.

I’m sure the artist can explain, in detail, the meaning of each artwork to give me a higher appreciation for her portfolio. I am more concerned with her artworks’ reflection of our civilization in its current standing. The quality, depth, efforts, and expressions shown in each or her artworks present a subliminal implication which reflects our modern Western mentality. It isn’t as much what is shown as it is what isn’t there. Before continuing I’d like to give this artist credit for forcing me to open up about my feelings regarding contemporary art.

Part 2: What Contemporary Art Reflects (Editorial)
The attitude that suggests philosophy, depth, and comprehension in art are subsidiary persists throughout what I would consider my generation of artists. Creativity, derision, and artifice techniques have taken priority, leaving traditional techniques and cognition of artworks a thing of the past. This observation of contemporary art makes me wonder where this attitude comes from.

I feel it would be appropriate for me to reference a piece propaganda art to lay the foundation for my following statements; Chinese poster (1974) “Art comes from a life of struggle; the working people are the masters”

"Art comes from a life of struggle; the working people are the masters."

Used as a tool to persuade Chinese citizens to favor communism, the first part of the poster’s title speaks volumes regardless of its sophist background. “Art comes from a life of struggle”.

Subjectively, “struggle” in our culture is quite faint compared to what we have experienced in the past. Contemporary art reflects this lack of struggle we encounter collectively. Thanks to advancements in Western science and technology, survival has been mastered. Agriculture, modern medicine and industrialization have made us comfortable.

It’s too often contemporary art doesn’t reflect struggle. And if an artwork does, it is likely either egotistic or political. As time spent combating true struggle in human survival has been replaced with amusement of status, technology, gossip, theatrics, and outright boredom, so is the case with contemporary art. The lack of conflict and pursuit of solution leads to nihil. As to where art was used as a record of history, to embody visions of absolution from struggle, used as a tool, its purpose is now to suit itself. “Art for art’s sake” marks art’s significance during this point in history and it’s quite shameful compared to the acuteness of past movements and art of the past eras.

As mentioned earlier, technology has much to do with the comforts we enjoy in our daily lives. It has also impacted the art world in ways unimaginable a century ago. We can create animated movies, logos, statues/figurines, paint artworks and alter photographs at the expense of a few clicks of the mouse or the swipe of the finger tip. At the same time, technology has turned certain mediums and crafts into novelties. The camera, for example, has made the portrait artist unnecessary. Why spend hundreds or thousands of dollars having a portrait painted of you when you can just pay someone to snap a good photo of you. It’s faster, cheaper and presents you as you are without any unwanted artistic mistakes or interpretations of your body. Or just pull out your cell phone and take a photo of yourself. Photo editing software can make your photo more dramatic and hide your imperfections. This is the same for landscapes. If you see a building, event, landscape, or general perspective you admire, you can simply embody what you see by snapping a photograph and then edit it to your delight. It’s much more convenient than dragging an easel and painting supplies with you and spending hours matching your canvas with the view you are capturing. Thanks to the camera, and technology in general, anyone can be an “artist” as long as they have a perspective and understanding of the technology they are using.

Some artists like to paint, and they make sure everyone can see it. Graffiti art has been around as long as I can remember and has served many purposes. Whether revealing political immorality, a local sub­culture, the extent of an artist’s techniques or representing someone’s alias for the sake of representing an alias, graffiti has always been relevant in my life. However, as significant struggles in our daily lives decline, so does the quality and depth of art. Graffiti has regressed into something more acceptable by the masses known as “street art”. One can simply spill fluorescent paint onto the pavement and claim artistic genius. For the artist who likes to spend time on his works, a repetitive pattern with contrasting colors that complement the structure used as the surface is a sure way to impress a passerby. The art doesn’t have to express a thought. It simply needs to be acknowledged. Let us not forget statues. Once monumental and used to exemplify the merit of a region or government, statues have degenerated into blobs of intrigue. While some statues clearly took years to make, that is rarely the case. Even the most notable modern statues seen in galleries or on the streets offer very little content and leaves the audience with more of a feeling of awe than an actual experience that makes them think or comprehend an artist’s thoughts.

Part 3: Closing Statements
My own portfolio contains artworks I created that meet my opinions and generalizations about contemporary art. However, it would be irrational to continue blaming artists for such empty, trivial artwork. These works appropriately reflect our culture and there is very little that can be done. I cannot demand a sudden struggle within our civilization for the sake of artistic constitution. Nor can I hope for an original expression from myself or other artists to revive the world of fine arts. For me to expect true originality is unrealistic. Perhaps not my favorite work of literature, the King James Bible describes the expectation of originality the best. Ecclesiastes 1:9 – “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” Whether or not you believe in the bible, this verse should be considered by those artists who wish to seek out a reputation for being “original”. Whether in the world of fine arts, literature or philosophy, there is no original thought. There is only a re­worded, re­organized, regressed or modernized interpretation of this thought.

Unconsciously these thoughts about art have been haunting me for the last year or so. I became bored with politics, social movements, controversy, the pursuit of originality and imagination. I lost interest in creating art that appealed to the masses and works that can be easily promoted. These themes along with the generalized themes mentioned throughout this essay make up much of the earlier part of my portfolio and it wasn’t until around April of last year I turned to a different realm of thought in which my recent artworks express; meditative comprehension and our relationship with the universe. There is a handful of other contemporary artists who focus on similar themes, usually identified as “occult”. I believe we have become uncomfortable in our comforts and we seek out struggles that often go unnoticed by most people, or at least unmentioned. There is an area of thought and exploration that is outside of the influence of civilization that has yet to be confronted collectively by humanity and is rarely expressed by contemporary artists. Our struggle is that of our perception of purpose and existence. From the beginning of self-awareness as a species well into our future, this realm will be one that few wish to explore, more so now with our amusement in our vices and technology. My discontent with contemporary art is in line with my comprehension in regards to the lack of struggle in our culture and I attempt to seek out the struggles in this meditative realm through my own artwork.

The thought of a struggle­free existence is both comforting and terrifying. How will this lack of conflict impact our drive for progress? Will there even be a need for progress once we have perfected humanity? Will there still be purpose in a life without struggle? What will happen after we reach perfection? In Bertrand Russell’s essay “The Free Man’s Worship” he incorporates the desire of God to describe the disclosure of a perfect world. Though the majority of the following reference is littered with relevant and irrelevant texts in regards to this essay, it is towards the end of this excerpt that metaphorically represents my concerns for the perfection of humanity and the possibility that perfection and the end of struggle annuls purpose:

“And Man said: `There is a hidden purpose, could we but fathom it, and the purpose is good; for we must reverence something, and in the visible world there is nothing worthy of reverence.' And Man stood aside from the struggle, resolving that God intended harmony to come out of chaos by human efforts. And when he followed the instincts which God had transmitted to him from his ancestry of beasts of prey, he called it Sin, and asked God to forgive him. But he doubted whether he could be justly forgiven, until he invented a divine Plan by which God's wrath was to have been appeased. And seeing the present was bad, he made it yet worse, that thereby the future might be better. And he gave God thanks for the strength that enabled him to forgo even the joys that were possible. And God smiled; and when he saw that Man had become perfect in renunciation and worship, he sent another sun through the sky, which crashed into Man's sun; and all returned again to nebula.

"`Yes,' he murmured, `it was a good play; I will have it performed again.'"

The lack of struggle expressed in art may be a sign that humanity is nearing an age of perfection in which art will no longer have any significance. Life itself will be insignificant as the absence of conflict will create pervasive apathy towards a purpose of progression. However, this perfect existence is distant.

I believe struggle is the key to the significance of art. I believe art in the near future will simply be used to compliment furniture, architecture, and to amuse the senses in the most prosaic of ways. In either Star Wars Episode II or III there is a scene that takes place on the technologically advanced planet of Coruscant in which an audience gathers in a theatre to watch color shifting blobs accompanied by matching music and nothing else. This scene may well be the future of art.

My original thoughts were in regards to the reasons why so many modern artworks seem to have regressed in content and depth compared to earlier artworks. In order to create something other than a long winded version of “Modern art sucks, it’s boring and I don’t like it” I referred to texts from the book Totalitarian Art to give me an idea as to where to begin to look for the significance in past art. The content of the essay extended from there and I was met with the realization that contemporary art, as bad as I see it, is relevant with our culture. After typing the word “struggle” a dozen times I shouldn’t have to further explain what I believe makes art important. The comfort many contemporary artists have in creating vapid art is appropriate with the course of our culture. The regression of art reflects the progression of our civilization.

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