October 17, 2011

• Art, Schmart...

  So, we decided to record "America's Next Top Artist", or whatever it's called (Evidently, it's called "Work of Art"), on Bravo, just to see what it's all about. Hey, I managed to get hooked on "Design Star", so, anything's possible, right? (I refuse to watch the "Real Housewives" of anyplace. I have some pride.) I figured that, at worst, it would provide some fun moments where people publicly humiliate themselves for money. (Look, folks: We're living in the last days of a decadent and dying Empire, and nothing any of us can do will change that. So eat the bread and enjoy the circuses while you can. It will end the same whether you do or not.)

  Let's put it this way: If I'd wanted to include an "artist" character in a story (oddly enough, the story I'm currently writing is about a graphic designer), and I decided to not do any kind of research, but, instead, decided to make up the most ridiculous over-the-top stereotype of "an artist", based on my narrow-minded preconceptions and the various parodies and satires of artists done by other people who, I would hope, actually did the research before mocking their subject... I might have come up  with this crowd. Pretentious, emo, narcissistic (and for ME to call someone narcissistic, well...that's the neutron star calling the wormhole light absorbing, or something...), and, of course, producing "art" that the Other 99.999999999 percent can't understand or like. If you have to tell me what it means, it ain't art. If I don't understand what it means by looking at it, it doesn't mean I've failed as an audience... it means you've failed as a communicator. 

  So, of all of them, I'm currently rooting for Sucklord, because, dude... he knew the name of Gandalf's sword. That's major nerd props. Sucklord strikes me as the kind of guy who might have ended up in my gaming/SF circles if I'd stayed in New York. And, yes, his professional, possibly legal, name is "Sucklord". Given that, whenever possible, I prefer to be professionally published as "Lizard", I do not have any grounds to comment.

  Sadly, Sucklord almost went home because his piece of art could be identified for what it was by someone looking at it. It was a plastic Gandalf. Now, I had proof of something I'd long suspected. I've always known literary criticism was utter and complete bullshit, and I've got the BA in English to prove it. (Dear Wall Street Occupiers: I learned a month after graduating that a Liberal Arts degree wasn't even useful as toilet paper, and I sucked it up and learned skills people would actually pay me for. I didn't hang around outside Bear Sterns and demand they hire me to deconstruct the institutional sexism in their latest bond underwriting scheme, or whatever it is they do. You don't get a job because you need a job; you get a job because people need your skills. As in all adult relationships, your needs are only half the equation; the needs of the other people involved matter just as much. But I digress.) Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. If literary criticism is bullshit, and it is, then art criticism, at least judging by this show, is.... I dunno.... brontosaurus shit or something. (Dear Paleontologists: I know there was no such thing as brontosaurus. I know the proper name is apatosaurus.)

  So, Sucklord was almost kicked off the island loft because his art was too comprehensible to mere mortals. However, while he may have artistic talent (or at least the ability to get people to pay good money for a stormtrooper action figure he spray painted pink, which is a talent of some kind, certainly), he needs to ramp up his ability to spew pretentious crap on demand. Here's what I improvised, more or less, during the show (thank you, DVR pause button!). I have two witnesses who can attest that this, or words very close to this (since I didn't record them or write them down) was peformed extemporaneously:

  Well, you see, what this represents in the cheapening and commercialization of what should be the magical and the mysterious. Our corporate culture has transformed what ought to be an icon of our highest and most spiritual aspirations, a symbol of the ascendancy of the mystical above the material, into cheap plastic, devoid of any true mythic resonance or symbolic power to inspire us to reach beyond the limits of ourselves. By creating a cheap and meaningless figure, I have shown what happens when the personal experience of the magical is commodified for the mass audience and thus deprived of all meaning and value.

  If he'd come up with that, he'd probably have been safe for the week. Unfortunately, he was a bit too honest, a deadly trait in what passes for artists these days (to judge by the show) and couldn't pretend it was more than what it was. 

  (The guy they did kick off was basically ripping off Keith Haring. Even I could tell that at first glance. On the other hand, the art he produced was something I could actually imagine being hung on someone's wall, because even if it didn't have any great meaning I could see, it still looked good as a piece of abstract sculpture.)

  To all of my actual friends who call themselves artists: Well, here's the thing. I can't think of any of my artist friends who produce art I don't understand. That is, when I see the art done by people I personally know, and who call themselves "artists", I tend to feel mad fits of jealous rage that I cannot produce things like that. I write because I can't draw, as I have said many times. If what's on Bravo is what "artists" are supposed to be, then I think we need a new term for people who actually produce comprehensible art... or a different term for people who produce the kind of stuff Bravo wants to reward them for. (Of course, the mere fact any of them are on Reality TV kind of implies they've Sold Out to begin with... a REAL artist would never CHEAPEN themselves by allowing themselves to be edited down to a two-dimensional parody of themselves in order to allow ignorant lowbrow Philistines like me to write blog posts mocking them because I'm too shallow and soulless to appreciate them (or that I'm too shocked and horrified by how they've revealed the hypocrisy and evils of our greedy materialistic racist sexist society (Yeah, they've got one of those, too. Of course they do!)))

  PS: In looking over the gallery from the episode, I should toss some props to Jazz-Minh. Her piece was comprehensible and told a story. I love art where a single image tells you an entire tale; you look at it and you can see the past and the future. To the rest of them? Wearing a cat mask is not art. Splattering fake blood on a canvas is not art. Here's my tip for just about every artist: If you have to tell people that you are "shocking", "controversial", or "confrontational"... you're not. You're trying too hard. The art that truly changes the world does not come about because someone got up one morning and said "I want to be shocking and controversial!". The art that changes the world comes about because the artist didn't care if his work was shocking or not, didn't care if people liked it or not, didn't set out to make a statement or send a message... it comes about because they created what they had to create because they could not not create it, and it changed the world because the truth of it spoke for itself. It is highly dubious anything I ever create will have any impact, but, if I ever do make something meaningful, I assure you, it will not be because I set out to do so. The things I've done that people like the most or comment on the most are usually never the things I thought would be popular; the things I do anticipating popularity often have no resonance at all. The upshot is that a creator creates because they can't not create; the more you concern yourself with what your work "means" or what you're "saying" or how it will be "received", the further you get from the whisperings of your muse. My muse whispers charcharodooms. (Didn't draw this, of course; I just imagined it and a real artist drew it. If I could do the art and someone else could do the imagining, I'd be happy.)

  

  • 9:45 am
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