Say Something

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You may have noticed that there hasn’t been a recent ‘art scene’ entry in

the First Friday column. This is not because I haven’t been going out to

href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Friday" target="_blank">First

Friday events, but the fact of the matter is, I’m sick of looking at portraits and paintings of fucking apples. Like in

href="http://www.alterati.com/blog/?p=226" target="_blank">Phoenix, the

social element of the night is as strong as ever in Philly, and it is quite

likely I simply missed some of the more groundbreaking events, but for the

most part what you find going from gallery to gallery is more of the same:

generally well rendered still life’s, nudes, and cityscapes. Occasionally, you might happen upon rehashed

Picasso style work with accompanying lengthy, incoherent artist statements, or post modern meets art deco. None of these are entirely without their merits, but, like in the music world, we are desperately in need of something different. Something genuinely, uniquely different that isn’t trying to be different, or anything else for that matter.

As I shuffled from one crowded gallery to the next, I really couldn’t help

wondering whether the gallery business is simply a symbiosis of galleries and artists producing and procuring the accessible slices of a mundane, comfortable reality that none of us live any longer. Beautiful sunsets, birds sitting together on a beach, an arrangement of provincial life represented through a lump of cheese and wildflower arrangement- these are the elements of a glorified kitch which can only be called art if it is indeed the mythic reality of its audience.

By the end of the night, I couldn’t help but level that question at the art gallery “thing” in general.

Do they exist to present something that confound us and makes us question our lives, or do they merely present something comfortable that you can hang over a place setting in your dining room?

In a visual medium, it is necessary to woodshed perspective, color theory,

and yes, do your cityscapes and nudes- but why are the galleries presenting

this work as a final piece, when it is all essentially an exercise meant to

develop the skills necessary to actually say something with your art?

When cameras were invented, many painters thought they were out of a

profession. However, this invention instead helped to demonstrate what the

real function of painting was, and helped push the art form further away

from mere recreation. It must evoke and emote. In the photographic age a

realistic representation itself becomes a comment on the subject, a

conscious choice, but in the case of a photo realistic apple, what does it

say except “I am an apple”?

It makes me think that the curatorial process here is not one based on the

art at all, but instead what kind of overpriced art the gallery owners think

will sell to rich yuppies who desperately want to telegraph class and poise

to their peers. (Which is not to say that it isn’t the work that the artists

themselves are producing in either event, but it is certainly telling when

nearly every gallery owner seems to pick the same kind of work.)

You can see many artists at the point of skirting the line with this

href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representation_(arts)"

target="_blank">representational work, taking a commonplace object- a

apple, say- and rendering it in a different style. This is much like the

practice in Jazz of taking the chord changes of a tired old tune, and

blowing through them in a new way- only truly interesting when the artist in

question has such a complete grasp of their own voice that it becomes a

unique piece of music. (For example, Coltrane’s

href="http://www.alterati.net/details.php?id=288479"

target="_blank">Favorite Things.)

It may be that even in the art world these days, the financial overhead and

other necessities of a scene supersede everything else. From the standpoint

of sales a still life is a safe bet- most people know what a flower or an

apple is, and there seems to never be a shortage of people who want to buy

paintings of them.

As I reported in my

target="_blank">first Philly article, it’s the art on the street that

more often approaches the cutting edge. And of late, cops have been cracking

down on the ‘illegal’ street artists. There are several galleries which seem

to defy this rule, consistently curating the unusual, the brilliant, or the

plain inexplicable exceptions- but that number appears to be dwindling.

Whether there are others picking up the torch that I simply haven’t heard

of, or if it was just an off month is anyone’s guess. Local art blogs

href="http://www.uwishunu.com/category/Arts/" target="_blank">continue to

report some interesting events within the city, but they seem to be

drifting away from the First Friday event.

The art that defies expectations and defines an era may never consistently

sell in its day. Yet without that work, those looking to be arrested and

startled by art will find nothing better to do with themselves than swill

cheap free wine. Art and business have of course been uncomfortably at odds

throughout history, but much like many siblings who seem so different on the

surface, they actually share more in common than either of them realize.

It’s the art that successfully re-frames our world that winds up defining

movements, even an entire age or people. It is also this work that winds up

going for millions of dollars several decades down the line.

However, for one reason or another, each generation only gets so many

artists of this nature- and it would appear that with the more recent

generations, very few of them have stepped into the limelight.

So, though I can tip my glass to commend an art scene struggling to find

it’s voice through tried (and tired) practice subjects, I’d much rather

present you with work that has both an identifiable, unmistakable style and

message, such as what I discovered at the

href="http://www.alterati.com/blog/?p=438" target="_blank">Tiberino

Museum.

Of course, this column isn’t restricted only to Philly- it simply happens to

be the city I am presently living in. If you have been in an art scene or

event recently that you believe deserves attention,

href="mailto:submissions@alterati.com" target="_blank">drop me a line.

Otherwise, I will put it on hiatus until such a time as I discover something

of note.