A good many column inches a have been devoted to Turner Prize winning Martin
Creed's exhibit Work #227: The lights going on and off, and not without
good reason: it is a stimulating piece certainly, though not, as the Tate would
have it, because it is 'emblematic of mortality' or even, more simply, as a
comment on modern living. The value of it lies rather merely as a polemic, in
what otherwise is a glib, cynical work exhibiting an arrogance towards not only
the institution of the prize (not necessarily a bad thing), but also the public
viewing it.
Art worth rewarding should be fascinating and alluring to the eye: it should
be warm and a pure pleasure to engage with. If a thing of beauty is a joy for
ever, then Creed's piece is neither a thing of beauty nor a joy for even the
shortest amount of time. It's not that all art should be choc-box pretty, and
never harsh, provocative or even conventionally ugly; far from it: such art
should not be precluded from a broad definition of beauty. Moreover, it's not
that art should be without humour; it's just that the joke in the Creed installation
isn't good enough. Imagine the scene: the night of the nominations, celebrating
with friends, the artist says 'Wouldn't it be funny if...'. The enthusiastic arguments
in support of the idea in a more perfect world would be dismissed the following
morning with a sheepish, slightly rueful 'Maybe not...'. Faced with the chance
of filling a room at Tate Britain, I can't help hoping I would come up with
something at least more interesting, if not also more joyful. The fact that
a fairish appreciation of the piece doesn't require actually going to see it
- that once in possession of the basic facts there's little more to comprehend
- speaks of its insubstantiality and lack of depth. That said, of course, without
actually being there, one does miss out on exactly how the people in the gallery
including oneself interact with and form part of the installation.
If considered as a joke, Work #227 would seem to be one glibly made
at the viewers' expense: uncomfortably arrogant and inhumane. Perhaps this does
the artist a disservice; perhaps it is rather his intention to embrace the viewers
with the exhibit itself, so that they become part of it. This common feature
of installations is taken to extremes in this piece, being, as it is, an empty
room. In this reading, the message becomes entirely populist: the art and the
artist only exist in relation to the public, with the work functioning as a
celebration of the gallery-goers and an invitation for them to consider themselves.
On the whole though, I'm inclined to think this is a generous reading.
Ironic, angry or rebellious arts have their place and merit, but I could almost
wish for more words to define subdivisions, as distinct from genres, within
art, instead of continually harping on the reductive 'But Is It Art?' question,
as some critics are wont to do. One distinction I should like to be able to
express is that of work which exudes a warmth and uplifts the soul, while stimulating
the intellect, which could be called beauty. As Keats more eloquently has it,
it should 'keep a bower quiet for us, and a sleep/ Full of sweet dreams, and
health, and quiet breathing'. While shying away from the impulse to formulate
an exclusive definition of 'Art', this would seem to form at least a part of
it, though of course whether a work has this quality is always a subjective,
indefinite matter. Steve McQueen's 1999 winning exhibit, for example, to my
mind has this quality where Work #227 does not. Art should be a labour
of love crafted to perfection. Part of the pleasure of appreciating an artwork,
absent for me in Creed's piece, is an awareness of the process whereby the artist
strives towards the perfection of the work until it is just right; indeed, like
an image coming into focus, until that moment, when the artist is satisfied
that no alteration, however slight, could improve it, it is not a work of art.
This element of human judgement is the key and the reason why a picture randomly
generated by a computer could never be classified as art.
The Turner Prize nominees' desire to be remembered as the Tracey Emin's Bed
or Damien Hirst's Cow of their year is understandable and perhaps this
is the ground on which the true prize is won. If that's what it takes to win
the prize and/or garner the publicity derived from media notoriety, then the
move to shock and even cynicism become more forgivable. The money and prestige
aside, the fact is that no one of the wider public remembers whether Hirst or
Emin actually won the prize that year: publicity is all.
The annual furore over the prize in certain newspapers plays to their readers'
egos and prejudices, while actively discouraging engagement with the artwork.
It reinforces insecurities about not having the brains or the right class background
or the sophistication to begin even to consider a response to art, thereby cutting
them off from it, as if they were somehow not qualified merely to have an opinion
because of this perceived lacking in cultural education. It encourages an inarticulate,
closed-minded, reactionary reaction which jumps to judgement without participating
in a discussion, which is enjoyable in it own right and a process which is often,
in fact, the very thing people enjoy about art. A sanctimonious, self-righteous
anger (not a pleasant or intellectually fertile state) pervades and is encouraged
by this sort of criticism. If only they, journalist and reader alike, could
redirect that anger to a more fitting target (it is only art, after all, not
world poverty or war).
There attitudes are the absolute antithesis of the effect the internet revolution
which has turned everyone into a critic, the vast majority of whom may not be
very good as critics, which is why they rightly languish on obscure homepages,
but are to be lauded nevertheless for having an opinion and for offering it
to the public domain. The medium encourages debate and a massive plurality and
diversity of opinions which, in stark contrast to the traditional reader-journalist
dynamic, is refreshing in its democracy and its un-Englishness. This new criticism
may be ill-informed, badly written and ludicrously opinionated, but remains
valid as what it is: opinion. All of which recalls the mantra 'process not product'
(if you don't start somewhere, you'll never get anywhere) and lays waste the
puerile, self-defeating fear of 'getting it wrong'. This is an encouraging step
towards the way in which it seems other Europeans, if not simply the rest of
the world, interact with art: without shamefacedness or feeling the need to
apologise for being 'pretentious'; rather with a much more inclusive attitude,
so that everyone feels entitled to an opinion, which they are entitled to express,
and actively enjoys the cut and thrust of cultural debate across class divides.
Bring it on.
Eleanor Babb
Editor of londonart.co.uk
eleanor@londonart.co.uk
www.londonart.co.uk
0207 738 3867
This article first appeared on londonart.co.uk.
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