Works of Art With Contradictory Interpretations Works of Art With Opposite Meanings
M ost works of art that cause controversy are past their nature sensational. They are sexually graphic, or violent, or politically contentious. Carl Andre's Equivalent VIII is different. It is the virtually boring controversial artwork of all time.
Tonight BBC4 volition rake over the boring controversy about these slow bricks one more boring time. But why? Bricks! (9pm, BBC4) is part of a flavor on conceptual art that has ranged from Vic Reeves on the Dadaists to a survey past James Fox. Information technology's all a bit naive, as if the programmers don't know that Uk has been in the grip of conceptual fine art for some years now – ever heard of the Turner Prize? The most baffling idea, notwithstanding, is to return once more to the 1976 debate virtually the Tate Gallery'south decision to buy Carl Andre's "pile of bricks".
1 problem is that if you look in your Bluffer's Guide to Modern Fine art yous will find that Andre is a minimalist, non a conceptual artist: there is a divergence. Conceptual art was a motion in the belatedly 1960s and 1970s that replaced paintings and sculptures with ideas: the art object became a concept, something that could not be bought or sold because it was purely intellectual. Equivalent Eight is not immaterial in the way conceptual art aspired to be. It is as solid as brick. It is also as stupid as brick. If this is "idea art" (another term for conceptual art in the 1960s), tell me: what is the thought it embodies?
Equivalent Eight is the very opposite of conceptual art. Instead of airily escaping the physical nature of fine art into a globe of thought, information technology dumbly and relentlessly insists on its cloth reality – and nothing else. Being an arrangement of bricks is all this system of bricks does or wants to practice. It is brute fact. Information technology is there. And that's that.
Of form, I can see why the BBC thinks it's worth revisiting the scandal in 1970s Britain when the Tate "spent taxpayers' money" for a load of bricks. In fact the price paid was a princely £2,297. That modest sum didn't stop the aesthetically bourgeois Burlington Magazine and a barrage of newspaper manufactures from attacking the Tate for wasting public money on "experimental fine art." The controversy predictable later arguments in Uk nearly Rachel Whiteread'southward House, Damien Hirst's vitrines, and Tracey Emin's My Bed.
I just wish the BBC had chosen to focus on ane of those later rows – at least they were almost interesting art. Sharks are fascinating. Bricks are not. The controversy was a argue near the value of modern art itself, that could equally well take had many other pieces of art every bit its provocation. Unfortunately, the piece of work the scandal magnified is a dry and sterile object that the gallery bought for dry bookish reasons. Equivalent 8 is a textbook illustration of minimal art that should stay in a textbook. No-one should be made to await at it in a gallery. While Donald Judd and Dan Flavin accept minimalism to glorious heights of beauty, looking at Equivalent VIII is a motorbus ride to banality.
I've recently taught two Guardian Masterclasses at Tate Modern and, each time, Equivalent VIII was a burdensome thwarting. It is a work of fine art that leads nowhere, that inspires zippo. (Nearby in Tate Modern's Switch Business firm y'all'll find Rachel Whiteread's green resin cast of a floor – a much more emotional, suggestive, spooky work of art.) I can't believe nosotros're still talking nearly Equivalent Eight. The tragedy is that a long-ago 1970s row has fabricated it somehow necessary for all proficient aesthetic liberals to defend this modest, pedantic, morose triviality.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2016/sep/20/carl-andre-equivalent-viii-bricks
0 Response to "Works of Art With Contradictory Interpretations Works of Art With Opposite Meanings"
Post a Comment