With the dawn of the internet and the subsequent explosion of social media, art in all its forms is ubiquitous across all social apps today. Every conceivable type of artistic endeavor is accessible, from extremely technical realist paintings and drawings to Basquiat on steroids, to monochromatic minimalism. Where in the past, movements in art sprung up as a natural rebellion toward hidebound artistic norms, (Dada, Impressionism, Cubism, Abstract Expressionism, etc.), we now find that any and all expressions are displayed with just a casual search through our phones. Not to mention the fact that the Covid lockdown inspired many to seek their inner artist, resulting in an explosion of art across all media, the quality of which could be debated depending on ones point of view. My personal opinion is that anyone is an artist if they wish to be. We are a naturally creative species. We also live in an age in which any creative expression is valid, an idea that was pioneered by the countless artists before us, who continually challenged old ideas. I doubt very much that Cubism, for instance, would have been taken at all seriously in the eighteenth century.
The idea that "Anyone is an artist if they wish to be", is a real tinderbox for controversy in the world of artists. Justin Bua, a well-known contemporary urban painter, has an Instagram account in which he reviews, with great passion, different artistic expressions that come to his attention, usually from followers. He doesn't bother being "nice" about blatantly anti-art art. He screams in passionate rage at the screen when he is shown things like paint indiscriminately spewed on a canvas or slathered on a wall. He was outraged by the Museum of Modern Art's display of a snow shovel hanging from the ceiling. This led me to pause: did he know this was a reproduction of Marcel Duchamp's "In Advance of a Broken Arm"? I don't believe he mentioned it. Regardless of whether or not he knew this, it brought home to me that the art world always has what I call "Goalies". The ones who appoint themselves judges of what they deem to be "Proper Art", and make sure they rake the poor souls over hot coals that would have the temerity to challenge their conception of what is "good". This particular fellow is a flaming unapologetic egotist, and will be more than happy to show his tremendous accomplishments, and tremendous they are. It's always this type that decides to enlighten us all, and precisely the type that Duchamp would have laughed at. He lives in a world of bitterness at the very thought that someone should get such attention when his successes involved great difficulty and struggle.
This leads me to the idea of what I call Gimmickism. When is it a realistic approach to the creative impulse, and when does it descend into a cheap attempt at attention grabbing? If you're an artist in this day and age trying everything you can to get your art noticed, well, good luck, Jack. You're a drop of water in an artistic sea. The internet has become flooded with hundreds of businesses that cater to vulnerable desperate artists, offering them pots of gold at the end of their artistic rainbows...for a price. Do they work? I'm skeptical. Nothing happens overnight; it's usually a process that requires hard work, sacrifice, and discipline, not to mention the fact that you must create consistently quality work on a regular basis. The idea of "quality" is something that I explore in a previous blog, but suffice it to say that if you're an artist, you must know that the quality of your art reflects how much you respect what you've created. It is you who defines the quality of your work. Now, what does a snow shovel have to do with all this?
I'm convinced that Banksy knew what he was doing all along. His approach of artistic graffiti was brilliant, not that it hadn't been done before, but that it was consistent and persistent. It kept showing up. So all he did was create and wait. Maybe nothing would happen, maybe something would. I think he knew something would. As a past free-lance illustrator, I felt his work seemed like a Progressive Insurance ad. But it wasn't how great of an artist he is, but the unique way he made "Anti-Art". Call it a gimmick if you will, but it got attention over time. Now Banksy is a household name. I was certain he had it down when he faxed one of his pieces to an auction and had it set up that it shredded half of it. Sort of a statement, I guess, but artistically brilliant at the same time. So, the moral of the story is: ya gotta get attention. And what better vehicle than social media?
And boy oh boy is social media loaded with gimmick art. But here's the problem, and where I differ with Bua and all the rest. I love this stuff. A guy spewing butter all over the floor with a butter knife from a big block of it. A woman who, in a Zen-like state, stands before her canvas with two pallet knives loaded with paint, her eyes closed, then suddenly bashes the canvas with paint in a mili-second. Honestly, the process was much more interesting to me than the end result. Felix-Gonzales-Torres and his wonderful candy displays, which invite viewer interaction, including eating them. Damien Hirst's fly paintings, made of actual dead flies. And what about Andy Warhol's soup cans? I remember being mesmerized as a young aspiring artist by the stark irony of them. I heard someone describe Jackson Pollock's work as a "House painters drop cloth", which shocked me to the core at what I thought was monumental ignorance. I guess I'm digressing a bit...which leads this blog to the inevitable: The infamous work: "Comedian" by Maurizio Cattelan. You may know it as the "Banana Taped to the Wall", which was meant as a tongue-in-cheek critique of the silly excesses of modern art, but instead sold for millions of dollars, thereby raising the level of irony to astronomic heights. WTF. I have no doubt that if there is an afterlife, good ol' Marcel is laughing his ass off. But this is where we are folks, so is it any wonder that all bets are off? There is nothing I can do but wonder at the absurdity of human behavior, and also reflect on the power of art in the world of the manipulators that feed it. Anybody know where I can get ten pounds of butter cheap?
The bottom line for me is this: Go ahead. Make art that challenges norms. Piss the Buas of the world off. Nothing that you do will stop him, or me, or anybody else from creating in our own way. I am obsessed with creating art, and so far, butter's not in the equation. But if you can nail an apple to a two by four, or put a crucifix in a jar of urine and make it work, I ain't gonna stop you.
Somewhere, Norman Rockwell shrugs.