A is for ART
The thing I don’t get with art is who decides what is good and what is bad? What is art and what is a scribble? What is a masterpiece and what is an eyesore? Well, to me, these boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred.
I can look at a Monet and appreciate the accuracy and the beauty of what is being depicted, but when it comes to splodges on a bit of canvas or the type of thing that is hung in a big airport hanger-like airy gallery for pretentious middle class Tom’s Dick’s and Harry’s to gaze at blankly while pretending to understand the ‘meaning’ behind what is staring back at them, I just don’t get it. And the price tag! I seem to read more and more regularly that paintings and art are fetching millions at auctions.
But why?
Once again, I can appreciate that hanging a picture on a wall brightens up the place, fills a space in an otherwise nondescript room, and can be the focal point in your detached home in the suburbs, but surely it cannot be worth the price of a hospital wing? The price of cancelling some world debts? Of dragging people, even nations, out of poverty? I’m not trying to get all high and mighty and crawl up my own arse or anything; I just think that £8million could be better spent. And back to the issue of what makes art good; who decides what gets put on the wall of the TATE and gets snapped up at Sotheby’s and what ends up in Wilkinson’s for a fiver?!
To me, art is in the eye of the beholder and whatever makes you smile and whatever you get a connection with is good, and is good art. I just think it seems like when an artist gains enough media coverage or becomes that extra bit controversial or says something a little too outlandish, their work can’t help but benefit. And that means that the popularity of their art is surely not based on the work’s merit and on the quality of the piece itself, but on the amount of media saturation, the amount of coverage, and the ‘talkability’ of the artist – not necessarily the art. It is almost as if the name of the artist transcends the art and anything they whittle off, whack on a canvas, or draw with a pencil sticking out of their nose will not only sell, but sell for the price of a small island. I guess all art is the same.
If you take the term in the broader sense, photography, sculpture, even film – I find it odd how so much ‘art’ is produced and so little is classed as being ‘good’ or ‘worthy’ (of spending ludicrous amounts of money on anyway). I appreciate that everyone is more than entitled to their opinion and whatever makes someone tick is their own business, but I cant help but feel that because of a few individual’s opinions, certain art, and therefore certain artists, gain more credit and more kudos than is perhaps necessary.
If a child picked up some paint and sploshed it around a page and tried flogging it, the little nipper would be hard pushed fetching a quid for it at the local church fair, but if certain artists tried their hardest to make their latest output look like a bairn’s drawing, it would be revered as the future of art, hung in galleries, transformed into postcards, and no doubt find its way onto next years calendars.
