A Parallel Image by Gebhard Sengmuller
The art world, like the real world, is in constant flux. Genres redefine themselves, whole areas are reinvented, meanings and readings shift. Art is constantly undoing itself. The modes and media are fluid and evolving.
For example, art fought its way out of galleries through the 60s and 70s in an attempt to reclaim itself from academia, the market and ownership in general. However, art is now finding its way back in to these galleries which allow the greatest expression and with the kickbacks that prominence in a market can bring. This market is the key – everyone wants buy the latest big thing. Except in price and exclusivity it is no different to the MP3 player market – who wants to buy an ipod from 2 years ago?
In the (paraphrased) words of Matthew Collings ‘nothing in art is new. It is about re-interpreting the past to be relevant to now’.
Detail of Hieronymous Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights and detail of the Chapman Brothers' Hell
Max Raphael wrote that art’s aim was the “undoing of the world of things”. Marcuse refers to it as “the great refusal”. John Berger speaks that art is the bridge between what is given and what is desired.
In other words we already have art but by its nature art must always strive to be beyond the art that was. The problem is that we can’t invent a new art, it is always founded on concrete art history.
Detail of Pieter Bruegel the Elder's Hunters in the Snow and Detail of an un-named piece by Francisco Infante-Arana
Human history also interrupts the story of art causing it to lose and change its meanings. A triumphal imperial painting might now be seen as tasteless colonial suppression. In the two examples below we see cutting edge scientific progress, which now looks like schools’ science.
Detail of A Philosopher giving that Lecture on the Orrery by Wright of Derby and detail of The Anatomy Lesson by Rembrandt
Millet’s peasants doing back-breaking labour in a seemingly endless field speak to us more of a predominantly rural past than of agricultural production.
Millet's Les Glaneuses
Art and history conspire to make art become artifact almost as soon as it is seen, digested and assimilated. Every year, as soon as the Turner prize is announced the ones that didn’t win become footnotes in the history of the prize, not the vibrant pieces they were previously.
This process is also internalised – as we see a piece we digest it, consign it to memory and go on to look for further visual stimuli. But if we return to a piece. its familiarity is over-riding. It is a thing of the past.
Bibliography
About Looking, John Berger, Bloomsbury, 1980
Seven Days in the Art World, Sarah Thornton, Granta, 2008
Gebhard Sengmuller reinvigorates the silhouette
Image of Gebhard Sengmuller’s work used without permission. If the artist or any of his representative’s wish it to be taken down please contact the Inquisition.
This post is tagged Art, art history, art market, gallery, History, john berger, max raphael, modern, old, painting, Renaissance, sculpture
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