This one needs a little backstory. Yesterday I went to an art gallery with one of my friends to see a new exhibition. We ended up having to go down a small back street and through an anonymous door which in any other situation would have me reaching for a can of mace. There wasn't even a sign on the door. There was no indication of any sort that this was a gallery. Once inside, we had a look around. Stairs led up to the main gallery, which was a large room with about five pieces in it. The artwork included the wallpaper- repeating 'conceptual design' up and down it' produced a dizzying effect which I rather liked and two neon pieces proclaimed- with glow!- I CAN'T EXPLAIN and a wild scribble. I liked the scribble, it's the sort of piece you can put into a home. There were less impressive paintings as well, but the neons and the wallpaper were the main features. After having looked at these, I wandered over to the literature that the artists often provide, scrapbooks filled with articles about their work and a manifesto usually declaiming the world and showing how terribly unique they are. I read both these things and moved onto the book he'd written. It had dead pages with small text at the bottom with epigrams at the bottom- 'I couldn't think today.' 'Conceptual'. If he had just one of those up on the wall, I would have been impressed but repeating them in a book is a tad lazy, in my opinion. It's been done before and it's not particularly clever. My friend came over and asked me what I thought.
'I like the neons, but the paintings don't really have much of a vibe.'
'Yeah. I know what you mean. You know, I love this space. I'd like to have an exhibition in here.'
We both looked up. It WAS a lovely room, a very urban feel in it, high ceiling, skylights, You could say it was roomy and I did.
'The only problem, though,' I said, 'is that it's so out of the way. It's not really the kind of place that passersby could just pop into for a quick art fix. It'd be nicer if there were....more...signs....' I trailed off, since she was looking at me in a way that firmly said 'No, it wouldn't.' I asked 'Wouldn't you want people to come and see your art?'
'Yeah, but it's not really for..the...'
'....general public?' I finished her sentence.
'Right.' She went on to explain. 'Art dealers come in and other artists and the general public is...well...'
'Unnecessary?'
I thought about it on the way home. Art is, in a way, like a currency. It's a form of valuation of culture, both mainstream and 'sub'. If all art were suddenly to become worthless, the values of the markets would change drastically. Sotheby's. Antique art collections. Large collectors like Saatchi who go around snapping up anything that looks like it might float out of the main river into the 'this is so hot right now' side river and the silt builds up, people who are good but didn't quite make it, behind these people. Eventually the art world closes itself off and forms an oxbow lake, to continue the analogy. The gallery I went to is part of that oxbow lake. I've always taken the opposite tack when it comes to art- that it's for everyone, that it exists mainly to fulfil that part of a persons' soul that can't really be fulfiled by daily life, that it speaks to something higher. I feel it SHOULD be for everyone. The result of the art oxbow lake is that you end up with a clique that doesn't care about the river and the river which doesn't care about the lake. This is why there's been a massive fall away from art, because it's stopped sharing it around. If you want to get into the art world, there's only a few small holes in the wall- go to an opening exhibition and speak to the people there, go to an auction and speak to people beforehand. Go into an art college and comment on the artists' work. Speak to them. The art world really is just all about communication. The best talkers get ahead. The ones who can move it, groove it AND talk are the ones who float to the top, like algae in the oxbow lake. Every now and then, someone floats to the top who is actually genuinely good- Odd Nerdrum, for example, or the Wyeths. These people are (sorry, another metaphor coming up) like the lilies on the top of the lake, floating around and actually elevating peoples' souls, minds and idealism. These people, though, won't achieve their aims properly if they don't get out of the oxbow lake and into the main river. The main river by now has become apathetic and ignores the lilies trying to grow lungs and make a quick dash from water to water.
The metaphor is severely strained now, but that's how I feel- strained, that such a gap should exist and which is making my creative life harder to fulfil happily. So- that's my no. 2 of things I hate: Art Which is Not Meant for Public Consumption.
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