The Answer to Saatchi
In The Hideousness of the Art World Charles Saatchi writes of his disgust of the “new, super-rich art-buying crowd” that he finds “vulgar and depressingly shallow”.
The work that Saatchi peddles is "postmodernism" double-plus and there is a good deal of self-publicity going on in his article. It is a form of sophisticated one-upmanship, and not the "spiritual revolution" I am looking for. His view is that it's not the art that's ugly but the art-world.
Yet the Answer to Saatchi involves much more: for if a work is “ugly” then it may yet be art – just look at the world!So we have to investigate the nature of art itself...
There are three players: the artist, the critic (or dealer) and the patron. Of the artist Saatchi says nothing. Of the critic we have the caustic remark: “art dealers with masturbatory levels of self-regard”. Of the patrons the equally vitriolic: “Being an art buyer these days is comprehensively and indisputably vulgar.”
Art – whether it hangs on the wall, or is a work of poetry – exists in the mind – and hence has to be created in the mind of the patron. Traditionally, the work of art itself provided a great number of clues as to how the viewer can reconstruct the icon or emotion in his/her soul.
The work that Saatchi peddles is "postmodernism" double-plus and there is a good deal of self-publicity going on in his article. It is a form of sophisticated one-upmanship, and not the "spiritual revolution" I am looking for. His view is that it's not the art that's ugly but the art-world.
Yet the Answer to Saatchi involves much more: for if a work is “ugly” then it may yet be art – just look at the world!So we have to investigate the nature of art itself...
There are three players: the artist, the critic (or dealer) and the patron. Of the artist Saatchi says nothing. Of the critic we have the caustic remark: “art dealers with masturbatory levels of self-regard”. Of the patrons the equally vitriolic: “Being an art buyer these days is comprehensively and indisputably vulgar.”
Art – whether it hangs on the wall, or is a work of poetry – exists in the mind – and hence has to be created in the mind of the patron. Traditionally, the work of art itself provided a great number of clues as to how the viewer can reconstruct the icon or emotion in his/her soul.
Shark by Damian Hirst Let us examine Shark by Damien Hirst. The power of this work derives from its iconic expression of the modern anxiety over death – it is a work of anti-religion capturing all the neurosis we feel over the inevitability of annihilation stemming from our shared mechanistic vision of human nature. As such, it needs little interpretation and its power is indisputable.
Here the artist acts as industrial intermediary – his work is akin to the chemist as he pickles the shark in formaldehyde, which is his principle contribution. This work of art really exists in the mind, and it is the viewer who is the artist.
Reading the shark is self-evident. But typically a modern work consists of some industrial scribblings or installation accompanied by any one of a million titles – all synomyms of “The meaning of life”. So what does the patron make of this?
Here the artist acts as industrial intermediary – his work is akin to the chemist as he pickles the shark in formaldehyde, which is his principle contribution. This work of art really exists in the mind, and it is the viewer who is the artist.
Reading the shark is self-evident. But typically a modern work consists of some industrial scribblings or installation accompanied by any one of a million titles – all synomyms of “The meaning of life”. So what does the patron make of this?
Enter the critic – interpreter and psychopomp extraordinaire – this agent provocateur interprets the artistic/industrial process and guides the patron to the ineffable ectasy of meaning, accompanied to the dulcet music of opening wallets. Hence the “masturbartory levels of self-regard” of the critic/dealer, for this person really does know how to create ex nihilo, and rightly experiences all the pride and joy of raising Pandaemonium from the shores of the lake of darkness.
The springs of art are twofold: the external and inner worlds – the former approached through observation, the latter through self-analysis and vision. Yet how little there is of any of this in the industrial productions of the contemprorary scene. Where is the struggle to observe? Where is the struggle to know oneself? Thus the artist abandons his calling in a willful abasement to commericalism, and hands over his divine duty to the crtic/dealer. The artist is to blame.
In Answer to Job, the great psychologist C. G. Jung tells us how Christianity was the spiritual answer to the problem of evil found in the myth of Job. To justify his injustice God must sacrifice himself to save his creation. The Answer to Saatchi is nothing less than a new spiritual revolution in which the artist must rediscover how to subordinate industry to art and reclaim the territory that, in craven indifference, he has ceded to the critic. In so doing he will redeem the patron from vulgarity.
To adapt the words of Jung: The artist must become an artist precisely because he had done the patron a wrong. He, the guardian of justice, knows that every wrong must be expiated, and Wisdom knows that moral law is above even him. Because the critic/dealer has surpassed him he must regenerate himself.
In Answer to Job, the great psychologist C. G. Jung tells us how Christianity was the spiritual answer to the problem of evil found in the myth of Job. To justify his injustice God must sacrifice himself to save his creation. The Answer to Saatchi is nothing less than a new spiritual revolution in which the artist must rediscover how to subordinate industry to art and reclaim the territory that, in craven indifference, he has ceded to the critic. In so doing he will redeem the patron from vulgarity.
To adapt the words of Jung: The artist must become an artist precisely because he had done the patron a wrong. He, the guardian of justice, knows that every wrong must be expiated, and Wisdom knows that moral law is above even him. Because the critic/dealer has surpassed him he must regenerate himself.
