More gobbledygook
While trying to bring you worthwhile news from the pseudo-intellectual world of contemporary art, I'm forced to read some dreadfully pretentious tripe. Here's my latest find of waffle, taken from the blurb for Olan's Metamorphosis at the Ward-Nasse Gallery in New York. Drag queens are "...individuals ... who create the feminine iconic illusion"! Sounds like a Barbie™ doll. Take it from Coxsoft Art: genuine art communicates directly. For a perfect example listen to Gregorio Allegri's Miserere Mei. It hits you in the gut or it doesn't touch you at all. In the latter case you're probably dead. As a rule-of-thumb, any so-called "art" that needs gobbledygook to sell it is a confidence trick. What it sells is the illusion that you're a discerning intellectual. Believe this bull and you could end up paying £6.5 million for a stuffed shark worth £6000. Click the title link to dip into the pretentious piffle in Art Daily and ask yourself: Would you buy a second-hand car from that blurb writer?
posted by Ian Cox @ 10.7.06
5 comments
5 Comments:
Dear Coxsoft,
I read your post basically trashing either my art subjects of transgender in general as with an even further insult that it was a "buy me please" desperate cry. I am writing to tell you I honestly don't beg anyone to buy my art. I do ask that they look at it before the pass judgment. Of course that judgment is their own and they are entitled. Actually my work has has a simple message: see the individual through color
and light. By doing so, one's individuality can be more fully
understood.
My current show is a visual stimulation to remind people to simply
look at one another and see through the layers of a complex
personality. In our world today fame and pop stardom are sometimes
reduced to "5 seconds of fame"; In some respects we can blame
(or thank) the mass media for contributing to a jaded social value
of "been there, done that". Regardless, my work is an effort to
capture an essence within that fleeting context and place it
into a perpetual freezeframe."
I quote Haladane MacFall who stated in the late 1800's, "I say that the ordinary man who comes before a painting, frankly and generously ready to yield himself up to the impression that the artist has sought to arouse in his senses through his vision, will feel the significance of that art much more purely and fully than the critic who has set up for himself an elaborate code of laws founded on the achievement of one or two great masters, which the standard he applies to every work of art in a calculated and death-dealing manner which destroys his capacity to receive its real significance.
In short, the expert, by book-learning and by science, may come to a wide knowledge of the history of a painting of it's maker; but he has no gifts whereby he senses the real significance of that work of art a whit better than the ordinary man, who often endowed with superb and exquisite perception of the music that is in colour and line and mass.
It is as fatuous to measure the art of a Boucher or Chardin by the art of a Michelangelo or a Rembrant, as it is to measure that art of a Velazquez by the art of a Turner. The sole significance is as to whether an artist, by the wizardry of his skill, has created the impression upon our senses that he desired to create. If he shall have done so, then for us who sense it, he is a creator; if he shall have failed, then for us whom he fails to reach he does not exist as an artist."
If that is too much "gobbledygook" - then I am sorry.
Artist/ Olan
One more thing:
my work includes all types of people without judgement or bigotry on my part - I would appreciate it if you would respect the integrity of my subjects despite your own personal judgments - also in New York we say "shit" and we try to have some knowledge of what we are talking about before we put our foot in our mouth.
Olan/Artist
www.lipstickchic.com
Hi, Olan.
Thanks for the feedback. I appreciate the quote from Haladane MacFall and agree with it. You've missed the point of my blog. I was attacking the pretentious tripe in the blurb (the stuff written on the cover of a book to help sell it to a potential reader) rather than commenting on your art. I don't suppose you wrote your own blurb, which is in a style I often find in Tate Modern and other galleries which try to sell "modern art". It's a pseudo-intellectual style which uses a lot of big words to say nothing. The person who writes the blurb is the person trying to sell you an art exhibition (or a book). The blurb says "Aren't I impressive; look at all the big words I know. The art I'm trying to sell you must be as impressive as I am." I don't buy that approach.
What I have found over the years is that if "art" needs this type of sell, it must be hopelessly incapable of communicating itself artist-to-person (re. Haladane MacFall).
You might paint the most beautiful drag queen I've ever seen, but your blurb is telling me the opposite. All that gobbledygook says to me is "Avoid this exhibition; it's pretentious twaddle, not genuine art." I can't even remember if I saw any images of your art in the Art Daily article. The blurb was enough to destroy my interest and to stop me looking. (If I find an interesting graphic, I'll search the Web for more examples by that artist. I usually visit the gallery online, rather than accept Art Daily's version, and I give my readers the gallery link, rather than Art Daily's.
My view (and MacFall's, I believe) is that competent art doesn't need words to explain it. As I said in my blog, it hits you in the gut. This, I assure you, is not the academic approach to art, which relies on words to gain its diploma.
Words may add interest to a work of art. Look at my blog Rockwell in Texas: the painting of the little black girl going to school doesn't need words to describe it as a work of art, but the background story to the painting helps illuminate it.
In some way, I think you've proved my point: words get in the way!
Answer to 2nd comment by Olan. Now, now, Olan. Don't get your dander up. Are you sure about that? I think the Yanks say "crap"; we Brits say "shit".
P.S if you've painted a great drag queen, e-mail me a copy and I may publish it.
P.P.S before you accuse me of prejudice, I've found some excellent gay artists while trawling the Web. I don't care what their orientation is. It's the art that counts. Look at Micelangelo's David!
Whoops! Can't spell Michelangelo!
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