Art! What are you? Are you a thing that can be hung on a wall? Or are you something that can be hung and a wall and dribbled down it to end up as a sort of geometric heap on the floor?
An example of the latter in one of the later galleries in the mammoth Walk Through British Art exhibition at Tate Britain (sorry, artsters, but I failed to make a note of the culprit in this instance) got me thinking about the way, in the post-modern era (so-called), art has divided itself in two. On the one hand, you have the kind of work that remains, in the old-fashioned sense, hangable. On the other, the kind of art that you wouldn't, generally speaking, want cluttering up your living room.
You know the sort of stuff I mean. A pile of bricks. Big squares of animal fat. A shark in a tank. An unmade bed. Okay, you wouldn't hang any of those things on your wall, anyway. But you get my drift. What bothers me about this stuff is that it is made primarily to be shown in a gallery. And this to my mind is immediately problematic. Not just because of its elitism (its removal from the public realm in the ordinary sense), but because by being made essentially for a gallery scenario, it is ipso facto being made with the art market in mind. It is product. It is often very clever, funny, controversial, provocative product. But that is what it is. That's why a lot of it ends up sitting alone warehouses of the sort that (ironically) burned down, in the case of Mr Charles Saatchi. These places are the art equivalent of bank vaults: depositories where swag is stashed in the hope that its value will increase over time, like Nazi gold in a Swiss bank.
Doesn't always work out that way, of course. Damien Hirst appears to have overplayed his hand by swamping the market (and by foolishly revealing with his Wallace Collection show a year or two back how rubbish he is at 'proper' painting). As a result, the value of that spot meisterwork you snapped up a few years back has probably gone a bit arse-up. And that shark you've got festering in the garage? Better call in the taxidermists. Sucked in? Well, it's not really for me to say, artsters. Just be careful when you part with hard-earned cash for something less than fifty years old.
There I go, rambling off-piste again. Or am I? The thought that recurred, as I made my way through the modern section of the BP rehang, was just how arbitrary the selection of 20th and 21st century paintings was, the aforementioned dribble painting being a case in point. Likewise, Sarah Lucas's staggeringly silly Pauline Bunny, effectively a pair of stuffed tights sitting on a chair with a couple of floppy 'ears' hanging over a headless torso. I know there are serious points to be made about how women are viewed in society, but this isn't it. Would the same choices be made when a similar exhibition is put together in ten years' time? Or will the rickety roundabout of taste have moved on, leaving much of the work on show here to languish in the warehouse of oblivion?
We will have to see. Meanwhile, there was some notable stuff on view amidst the dross. The flash angularity of sculptor Anthony Caro was an obvious and rightful inclusion, even though I nearly decapitated myself on one of his girderlike excressences. Henry Moore and Jacob Epstein, were likewise well represented, although the real revelation for me was a couple of tiny, colour lithographs of reclining figures Moore did late in his career. Made me think he should have dabbled in colour more often (no pun intended), because these were genuinely exquisite.
So, yes, as exhibitions go, this is a tad over-ambitious, and somewhat flawed in choice and execution. But there are plenty of gems amid the trash, more than you can realistically hope to take in, in one viewing. It'll be on for a while, so my advice is to pop back a few times, have a coffee and pastry in the gallery cafe, and focus on a few rooms at a time.
As for me, on my first go-round, the real standout was Sickert's small but atmospheric streetscape, Cafe des Tribunaux, Dieppe, which captures the magical heat and light of a summer afternoon so perfectly you feel an overwhelming urge to step right into the scene, cross the street, order an iced tea at the Tribunaux bar, and sit for a while, watching a vanished world go by.
As for me, on my first go-round, the real standout was Sickert's small but atmospheric streetscape, Cafe des Tribunaux, Dieppe, which captures the magical heat and light of a summer afternoon so perfectly you feel an overwhelming urge to step right into the scene, cross the street, order an iced tea at the Tribunaux bar, and sit for a while, watching a vanished world go by.
A votre sante, artsters!
(Selection of top AWTBA images, next posting)
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