Yesterday, another comic artist I know posted this cheap little piece from Vice Magazine on his Facebook wall. I call it cheap because a lot of people get off on making fun of the weirder branches of the art world. So writing something like this is like a cheap joke. It’s total link bait. It’s the pop culture writer’s equivalent of a fart joke to a comic artist. As you might imagine – while I do often find some contemporary art pretty weird and it doesn’t move me at all – I didn’t agree with the dismissive tone of the Vice post. The irony of this to me is that my friend who posted it (which seems to imply endorsement, but I didn’t ask him) is a comic artist. Lots of people think comics are stupid, for kids and that it is silly anyone would pretend to be anything but a commercial hack if they are making comics.
So if he doesn’t think comics are stupid and other people do, how can he be so sure that other folks aren’t really confident that the weird art they do isn’t important even though he can’t see what’s important about it?
OK, then, today, Newsworks posted this story about a Philadelphia woman collecting defenses of artwork. Yesterday, when I read the first piece above, I thought about blogging about it and decided not to. Then I read the Newsworks story and wrote a comment on it that was basically a reaction both to the woman’s book and the Vice Magazine piece I read yesterday.
So here’s a slightly revised version of what I wrote over at the WHYY site in support of defending the art world:
God bless Amy Scheidegger. Defending art is such a noble fight. The other day an artist I am friends with on Facebook posted an essay about how stupid the contemporary art scene is, and it really bummed me out. Like those kids Scheidegger heard on the subway dismissing art majors, I know this guy likes all kinds of artists. And I know he likes lots and lots of artists (he’s into comics) that other people think are totally stupid. Those kids Scheidegger heard on the subway, you can bet that at the very least they like movies. And you can bet they had some disagreements with friends over some movies.
So why does anyone get to say where the line is between acceptable art that lots of people like and meaningless crap is? You don’t. And who’s to say that even if it is meaningless crap, it isn’t helping to inspire another artist to do something that will stand up over time?
When people are really hating on art, they often point to Modernism, where people would just paing – like – whole blue canvasses. That’s so stupid, they will say. Anyone could paint that.
That’s not the point of those paintings. The point of those paintings (whether the artists intended or not) is that a painting can be ANYTHING. All the old guidelines got torn down and anything is possible now. So a plain blue canvass in a museum? Yeah, it’s important. It was important then. In that moment. When people had certain assumptions about what painting “should be” and those assumptions were powerful in the art world. The plain blue canvasses were a key step. Sorry, lumpen, if you don’t get it, but artists are doing something important whether you can see it or not. It’s a process. It’s growing. Until everyone agrees and digs exactly the same stuff, no one gets to draw the line between good and bad.
Actually, that’s not true. The people willing to put in the effort to help get things seen get to decide what to show. If you’ll put in the elbow grease to create a venue, then you get to curate it.
Then those folks can decide what to show.
And you can decide what to look at.
And if you don’t like it, then go curate something better.
Otherwise, just don’t go see it if you hate it so much or just shut up.
