If you're the sort of person who grabs the zeitgeist by the balls, wraps its balls in a flannel shirt and plays the balls some really intense electro/hip hop, then this column isn't for you. But also, if your the sort of person who doesn't know what zeitgeist means, then this column also might not be for you.
The art world is a pond full of dead fish and floating turds. The algae, which in any normal pond would be an irritating by-product, is now the nearest thing to life in the pond. Dogs regularly die in the pond, even though it is very shallow.
In this extended and somewhat tenuous analogy, you can see this column as a bright light on the other side of the pond. You walk towards it, hearing laughter and the crackle of a warm fire. You get closer to the huddle of people, and too late, realise that they are crazy eyed, jenkem huffers, kicking dogs and spitting on each others necks.
Welcome.
Talking with a friend about the Sotheby's sale, they asked me what sort of work Damien Hirst did, and I replied that he was an artist of the market. He was making art history; concerned with legacy over content. I said that this was not a negative thing, but that if you take art's functionless state to its logical conclusion, then it was one of the few completely justified roles art has. A functionless object cannot transcend its state as essentially functionless, and therefore has to engage in a secondary role, such as a money-object in the art market. In this way the artwork itself ceases to be important, and the market dynamics become the art work.
I spoke to a security guard who had worked at the auction. He told me that the auctioneer had opened the bidding on a piece of work at two million pounds. The first bid was for nine million. Hirst's actions, and those of everyone involved in the auction, question the notion of art's perceived value, while at the same time making a twat load of money.
|
|
The pieces sold at the auction are now worth whatever they were sold for, which is an amazing example of general consensus reality. The problem with Hirst is that these ideas seem to feed back into distortion of the importance of his actions within the art market. However critically his work reflects up on the art object and those who buy art, it still seems to be fuelled by a frail need for money and the perceived validity it brings.
Hirst is a product of 80's aspirations. Jeff Koons, Warhol at his ugliest and the New York art market come to mind. The 80's also bred the neo-conservative ideas of liberal, capitalist democracy being the final goal for all societies. Whether or not you believe that all people would benefit from living under a democracy is a moot point. The era of making art that Hirst grew up in is one in which people have given up the very idea of progression. We have reached our final state and are just waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.
Art may be pointless, but to give up the idea of progression, to live in a state of inertia, confined by the self imposed structure of the art market is to give up altogether. Just think of Jeremy Deller, or Matt Stokes, or David Blandy. They play with structures outside of the art world, affecting an existing reality, and removing themselves from pointlessness.
The analogy of the pond is torturous, but here we seem to find ourselves again. Success in the pond is to become a floating turd; attracting attention, but still essentially, a turd. To become obsessed by the horror of the pond is to become one of those people who writes letters to the council about ponds. Your best bet is just to take your dog for a walk somewhere else.
matt@dekersaint.co.uk
www.dekersaint.co.uk
BACK
|