I listened to will Self's Lent talk the other day. For those who missed this, he urges everyone to give up everything, all media, newspapers etc., for Lent. I'm glad that he has been inspired by my own little efforts!
He talked about many things, much of which I agreed with. In particular, he characterised the 20th century as representing a triumph for irony and facetiousness. It was when he came onto art that I began to disagree. He said "Art has quit the temple precinct.", i.e. art has become separate from religion, something that is undoubtedly true. He went on, however, to say that in the last 30 years art has become our religion. I wondered immediately, as he described the faithful flocking to the temples of art, exactly how widespread he thought this was. To me, it sounded suspiciously like he was describing the attitudes, if not the activity, of a relatively small metropolitan elite.
Indeed, the real point is that with the separation of art from religion, it has become if anything more not less elitist. Appreciation (a terribly unuanced description if ever there was one) of contemporary art relies on understanding a deliberately obtuse and overly intellectualised language. Without this, the works have to stand on their merits as visual objects, which in some cases is very little. Denied the glory of works designed to be intelligible (but not patronising) to all who view them, the only mass participation in art sometimes seems to be crude sensationalism. That's the real triumph and tragedy of the 20th century,
No comments:
Post a Comment