ARTICLES

The Public Strikes Back: The Death Of Modern Art

I: Intrusion

‘My vocation as an artist is determined by demographic phenomena as much as it is by my intrinsic artistic ability. It is not driven by social class or by some hyper state of vain delusion!’ This is the standard cry of the self-deprecating artist who believes that his calling into the timeless realm of artistic endeavour is somehow determined by a natural, indiscriminate process akin to the proliferation of daisies and weeds. The peddling of such a fallacy by ‘the artist’ is not solely undertaken as a means of validating his existence; it is in fact a politically reflexive statement. To speak of demographic phenomena is to propagate the myth of vocational inclination as an innate force; that we pursue and actualise our intrinsic desires and capabilities irrespective of the nature of the political, economic and social dynamics at play. Thus we have the simplistic axiom: some people become plumbers and some people become artists – it is nature’s force. Rather, it is an ideological force. As such, it would be more accurate to assert that there are those who are impoverished and those who are wealthy, with the former fulfilling the roles which are beneficial for the latter and the so-called common good; the bourgeois artist, however, is beholden to himself and the elitist clique that ensures his elevation. The dissemination of the demographic myth is therefore intended to obscure the social hierarchy, privilege, and nepotism in the art world. It would be inappropriate, politically insensitive, for the self-effacing artist to proclaim his perceived existential superiority, to candidly confirm his belief that he is truly more lofty and urbane in his species-being than the vapid, homogenous mass that forms the rest of humankind. Demographic phenomena and the illusion of choice in commensuration with ability and desire must therefore be extolled. However, the trumpeting of inclusivity has presented a problem, which was unforeseen by the elite, in the veritable deluge of people from all different castes into the art scene; the arrival of the ‘contemporary artist’. This signifies the democratization of the art world; the ability to manifest aesthetic forms that enrich one’s culture is no longer the sole preserve of the elite. Society must now re-organize itself accordingly, allowing ample space for the numerical expansion of the contemporary artist through the gentrification of specific areas within the metropolis, ‘corridors of culture’, and the investment of exorbitant amounts of public funds into spaces and centres that are conducive to the contemporary artist when embarking upon the delineation of what can be referred to as the incomprehensible and unexplored forms of human consciousness.

It is at this juncture that we should ask ourselves what does this enlargement and transformation of the art world represent? On the surface, the expansion of the art world merely signifies the bourgeoning of the bourgeois society and the subsequent emasculation of its pretentious claims of a higher state of perspicacity and sophistication. When digging deeper, however, one finds the rancour of an archaic organ of society, the aristocracy, which is now experiencing in a paroxysm of indignation its unavoidable transmogrification. Nietzsche’s analogy of the sipo matador, the sun-seeking climbing plants of Java, suffices perfectly as a means of illustrating the transmutation of the artistic elite by the hordes of contemporary artists. The parasitic sipo matador clasp their tendrils around the oak tree until eventually with the tree’s support they rise high above it to unfold their crowns in the open light of the sun to display their beauty and happiness. The tree in Nietzsche’s analogy symbolizes society, which serves as a scaffolding, a mere instrument of support, upon which the aristocratic sipo matador is able to raise itself to a more profound task and higher state of existence; to engender culture and enlightenment. This great aristocratic parasite that has kept society in its bondage for millennia has been besieged by the contemporary artists who clutch resolutely to its frame, like the remora fish that cling to sharks, augmenting its dimensions thus threatening to bring about the collapse of a structure that has been systematically harnessed over the ages to endure the parasite’s implacable profligacy. Such an unprecedented bloating of the great parasite must be accommodated, satiated through the shattering of the livelihoods and sincere intentions of large swathes of the vapid, homogenous masses of society. This constitutes the restructuring of the human scaffold, of which we will return to later.

II: Normalization

In order to prevent the fabric of elite art society from being torn apart by the rampant proliferation of the contemporary artist, a specific modus operandi must be introduced into the institutional framework of art schools so as to control and shape the former’s behaviour and functional purpose. That is, through systematic inculcation of the institution’s ethos contemporary artists are manufactured en masse as purveyors of meaninglessness, instruments of obfuscation that safeguard and conceal the locus of the elite from the bewildered eyes of the vapid, homogenous masses. The multitude is kept at a distance, repulsed by the ostentatious spectacle manifested by the contemporary artists who are busily engaged in affirming the parameters of the art scene as fits their newly indoctrinated group identity. Those who enter this zone of the hyper-real without possessing the cultural idiosyncrasies emblematic of the contemporary artist are gradually infused with a sense of disjointedness, an odd feeling of dislocation, which slowly develops into the mentally corrosive experience of alienation. The realization by the prole of his intrusion into a place that is not meant for him overwhelms his senses. The pavement he walks upon, the street lights, the buildings and people he passes by suddenly become imbued with a menacing air, everything around him seems to come alive, accusatory eyes follow his every step, the atmosphere becomes heavy and oppressive as if a thousand hands were tightening its grip around his neck. Vertigo ensues, and the noises in the street grow louder and more distinct, a cacophony of hisses and malevolent mutterings begin to fill his ears probing and goading him: ‘What are you doing here? …You are an imposter! Be gone with you, back to the colourless, degenerative housing estate to which you belong’. The prole is swept out of the art scene by a whirlwind of sneering contempt. The veil is restored. The metamorphosing elite can thus continue with schizophrenic zeal their carving out of the decaying, traditional art world free from the reproachful gaze of the multitude, fashioning a new form of modern art that symbolizes the worthlessness of our consumer society.

The totem pole of contemporary art is erected. This powerful symbol of non-meaning, insignificance and banality engenders a state of stupefaction amongst its beholders. The contemporary artist prostrates himself before this overwhelming force - the great plastic deity fad - pledging to dutifully comply with its supernatural decree: negation of reason, dissolution of the intelligible, and admonishment of the creative. This represents the castration of the authentic artist, and the consolidation of the newfound institutional doctrine of the art elite. To practice and engage in art forms out with the neoteric maxims of the institution, such as lucid conceptualisations and critical reflexivity, especially with regards to ideas that have a strong political dimension, is to signal one’s rejection of the status quo. Through such an act of defiance, striking the totem pole, railing against the machinery of the art institution, the artist is ultimately destroying the possibility of forging himself a career in the art world. Unless, however, he is of a malleable disposition, and thus receptive to the strategized responses of the art institution; that he is capable of being normalised. The latter entails the exorcism of the revolutionary artist by the institution, the purging of his subversive, radical notions, by means of a prolonged period of ostracisation and castigation by the contemporary artists, the zealots who are now firmly embedded within the tabernacle of the art elite. Once the artist has undergone his successful rehabilitation and subsequent reintegration back into the art scene he is thus permitted to embark upon the final ceremonial act that symbolizes his absorption and ascension into the higher echelons of the art world in the form of initiatory participation in The Exhibition.

The preceding event constitutes the branding of the contemporary artist, the importation of the art institutions ideology, the imbibing of the tenets of the plastic deity fad, in a somewhat surreal, ritualistic manner. The Exhibition is configured as a theatre of the occult, whereupon the contemporary artist is offered up for sacrifice, his discarnate self turned inside out, stripped apart, cleansed of its contents and sewn back up ready to be filled with the inexhaustible vacuity of modern art. The throng of people, adherents of the art world, beholding the spectacle meanwhile indulge themselves in the offerings of little tidbits and wine which are now essentially as important a part of the spectacle, of the spell-binding façade, as is the ritualistic sacrifice of the artist himself. Wine and food, the blood and the flesh, such religious ceremonialism seems to infuse The Exhibition with a transcendental feel, the metaphysical participation in something that goes beyond the everyday experience. The spectators serve as witnesses to the ritual and, above all, as signifiers of the nebulous artefacts engendered by the artist. In other words, the coterie of spectators immerse themselves in the codification of meaninglessness, imbuing the so-called works of art with, as it were, a conceptual tone, insofar as it allows the latter to be vaguely comprehended on some level, thus creating the illusion of intellectual prestige. The charade of The Exhibition constitutes the final hard wiring of the contemporary artist in the manufacturing process; the irreversible entrenchment of the newfound maxims of the art institution. Subsequently, the vacuous, worthless forms of modern art, which are lacquered and hyper mystified by the art elite, are vigorously produced by the contemporary artist for public consumption. The raison d’être of the contemporary artist can thus be understood as the inexorable compulsion to express nothing.

III: Dismantling

The emptiness and worthlessness of contemporary art is championed by the government’s disproportionate allocation of funds to art groups and individuals engaged in projects congenial to the fancies and particularisms of the uber elite. In this new age of ‘austerity’ the national acceptance of bourgeois culture, the enormous white elephant which is relentlessly stampeding across society, across communities, on top of public libraries, hospitals, schools, welfare, laying waste to everything that constitutes national culture, is untenable. However, another deceptive mechanism has been put in place, the veil of bourgeois culture, contemporary art, has now been supplemented with the cloak of ‘economic productivity’. The decision by Dundee City Council to invest £47 million of taxpayer’s money into the construction of a new V & A outpost in the city, an elite art museum, elucidates the above point. The foregoing project has been justified by the city councillors on the grounds of tourism. The V & A museum is perceived as an emphatic means of augmenting the cultural prestige of the city so as to draw in large numbers of tourists, thus lifting the local economy through the generation of new jobs and capital. In truth, however, investment and the creation of wealth will be concentrated and fostered within a specific part of the city; the ‘corridors of culture’, the zones of the hyper real, where only the adherents of the art world are to be found. The promulgation by the ruling elite of a new public centre of artistic excellence is put into operation whilst, simultaneously, people’s homes, jobs, education and benefits are being obliterated. Indeed, the only possible form of public involvement that could be envisaged with regards to the V & A museum would be in the employment of people who have lost their jobs, as a result of recession induced ‘economic restructuring’, in the building of the art centre, brick by brick, sweat and tears, before the elite move in to take up residence.

The occupying of this new centre of decadence by the art elite will be undertaken with an unwavering sense of entitlement. The tacit truth of social reorganisation, the rejigging of the human scaffold, for the benefit of the elite will be discernible not through the timing of the museum’s development, amidst a recession, nor in its grandiose and tawdry design but, rather, through the rapturous sounds that emanate from the sacrificial ceremonies of The Exhibitions; which are soon to be conducted on a colossal scale. That is, a piercing cackle that finally shatters the walls of the crystal palace, slicing through the silent night, through the window panes of people’s homes, entering the ears and infesting the minds of those whose lives have once again been readjusted in accordance with the existential needs of the elite. The latter require more space to develop and bloat, more money for their art institutions, for the production line, for the management of modern art Inc, more funds for The Exhibitions, for the wine, for the flesh, more victims for the moloch-machine, more cash for the critics, the curators, for the certifiers, and the signifiers, more grants for the privileged, useless lot who are busy expressing nothing with a display of hubris, more…more…always more. And more means CUTS! Jobs - CUTS! Housing - CUTS! Education – CUTS! Welfare - CUTS! The perpetual assault on the meekly soul that is the genuflecting multitude.

Rupture ensues, and the dismantling begins. Society’s internalised apathy transmogrifies into an implacable rage, a carnal rage that hardens ones hands into stone, into hammers, yes, hammers, that smash and pound and claw and slash mercilessly into the ground, the sky, the flinching night, into the spectres of a never-ending nightmare, tearing asunder the bonds that blind and gag and mummify ones existence, breaking the chains that have reduced man to the level of an animal that must be restrained and rendered impotent, deprived of the elixir of life, herded into its stolid, functional, mechanical condition, to be nothing more than an object of whimsical speculation, of pitiful derision by the ruling elite. The fury drives the crowd on, along the streets, across the fields, between the buildings and cars towards the source of their disquiet. Blazing through the ‘corridor’s of culture’ towards the moribund museum from which the cackling gushes forth, the crowd trample across the cheap commodities, the nondescript matter that was once representative of human expression and vision with the sole objective of destroying the parasite, the symbol of oppression that has now finally revealed itself in its turgid, putrid form. The crowd scream CUTS! CUTS! CUTS! This time the object is something entirely different, it is the throats from which the maleficent, primeval laughter emanates. The parasite is duly slain. The veil is sliced to pieces. Silence is restored. When dawn emerges, a new imagining of art may be about to happen.

David McGill