Art does not have to be post-modern, Oct 2009
I feel strongly that contemporary art does not have to be post-modern to be new, interesting and innovative.
The current ongoing obsession with art that is 'about art' - each piece a 'challenge to the concept of art' is not only self-indulgent, but puerile and vacuous. Artists have been producing post-modern work for the past hundred years, and each piece says nothing more than the last. Yes, we get it, art is a difficult concept to define. Yes, we get it, it is hard to differentiate between an object produced as art and an object manufactured for sale as a consumer product. This does not mean there is any value in pointing this out again and again. Neither is it a good thing to exploit this by setting up a money-making machine for producing art. Art does not have to be 'about art' to say something interesting. It does not have to buy into consumerism to hold up a mirror to it to make us question its value or morality.
It seems that the majority of contemporary art is about post-modernism, installation and video art. Much of the post-modern or installation work strikes me as posturing vanity, and it is not accessible to the general populace - it leaves us cold. I think that post-modernism and video art should be what it is rather than masquerading as art. If you have a comment to make, make that comment - put it into words. Post-modernism seems to me to be semi-formed ideas that the artist lacked the insight or commitment to put into a coherent argument. Much of video art is indistinguishable from documentary, and this type of video art should be documentary, rather than claiming art status to allow for its quirky style or lack of clarity or production values.
I think a lot of new artists shy away from producing paintings because it is difficult to get noticed in the art world as just another painter, no matter what you put on the canvas. I think contemporary art needs a return to painting. This is an art form that has existed throughout human intelligence and is the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of a work of art. This should be a sufficient reason to value it and to continue to use it to explore and reflect the human experience, which in my mind is what art is about.
It makes sense to use this technique - applying pigment to a two-dimensional surface - to explore the human experience, since this is how humans have done it throughout human history; painting is something common to the human experience, in a way that producing a range of shoes and calling it art is not.
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