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Floggings4You -> RE: .SpectacleofDeath. (4/24/2008 6:49:45 AM)
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I obtained My BFA in fine art (concentration in painting) last December. Over the last seven semesters, I've had a great deal of PostModern theory crammed down My throat, which I then happily regurgitated come exam time.
There is a trend in contemporary art that I've never understood--and with which I've never agreed; to show reality as art. A real animal in a museum (and I'm here thinking of Joseph Beuys, not the guy who recently allegedly allowed a dying dog to starve as part of his exhibit, though that is part of it as well) is not art; its just a real animal. Seeing real animals (or real piles of bricks) tells us nothing about the artist's thoughts about the animal (or the bricks). (I'm sure someone will bring up Duchamp's Fountain, but that was intended to prove a point which has--ironically--rarely been grasped by the very art-world insiders it was intended to mock.)
The audience for such 'real' works is (apparently) supposed to enjoy drawing its own conclusions about the meaning and significance of the works. (Just as apparently, W/we're not supposed to wonder why such artists either have no opinions of T/their own to offer, or are unwilling to do so.) But, I don't need to visit a gallery (or employ an artist) to have the experience of drawing My own conclusions about real things: whether about real animals, real piles of bricks--or real people who are really dying. I own pets, there are brick structures in My home (and all over the city), and I was present at My mother's death two years ago. I don't need to watch someone else die (in a museum or gallery setting--or anywhere else) to be able to 'make sense of', or 'demystify' (or whatever other hip word some retrograde nominalist wishes to employ) the experience.
(Placing a shark in a tank of formaldehyde in an art exhibit--in effect, turning a fine art space into a natural history exhibit--doesn't change very much, and--at least IMO--what little change does take place is not all that interesting.)
I believe that any artist who creates a work of art that is either so vague as to be 'open' to any interpretation, or tht is 'real' (in which case it, too, is open to any interpretation) has failed in the task of being an artist. Artists should interpret, should offer their 'views'--their opinions, beliefs, and/or values--regarding reality.
And they can't do that by simply handing U/us reality, unedited, unfiltered, unaltered. Does the fact that Tracy Emin moves her disheveled mattress to a gallery, tell U/us anything at all about what Tracy thinks the bed means? (And, if she is truly impressed with the idea of moving her rumpled, stained bed, to a gallery, should W/we be likewise impressed? I'm not...)
When lazy artists offer U/us nothing but reality itself, well, I can 'get' that on My own. (I've seen My share of rumpled beds--and I daresay I had as least as much fun unmaking them, as Ms. Emin did in her own.)
I need art for what I can't get Myself, a glimpse into other minds.
The idea of moving dying people into museums is not shocking; its pretty darned old-fashioned, and--these days--rather banal.
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