Lovesick for Semantics?

Okey doke. I've spent about three days trying to write this now and I keep getting distracted - but I will not be deterred!

The subject of my post today: Are we falling in love with new and innovative artwork crossing our paths? Or are we wrapping ourselves up in the explanation written to the left of the work displayed in the gallery. Y'know - the one written by somebody completely anonymous and employed to make anything look and sound brilliant.

Excuse my cynicism, it's been a long week :p

I touched on this subject more recently in my deviantART journal --->here <--- where I've simply taken a look at a piece of work I came across in the saatchi gallery about a week ago. What I'm getting at is this. Does anybody else feel like there's a monumental amount of mediocre work out there on display? I'm certainly NOT trying to shoot anybody down. I'd be the first to say my work is far below that of anything amazing, but at the same time - I'm not sure everything that's put up in some famous gallery or another is that brilliant either. It's in my opinion that artwork on display should take your breath away. A combination of beauty and function to fire cynlindars in our eyes and minds to really make us think about what it is the artist is trying to say. In the very same Saatchi gallery, I came across a couple of installations that consisded of a single block of grey resin. Half a wooden picture frame. A piece of underlay for wood flooring. Some plastic with some tape on it. Granted, these were works displayed on the theme 'Abstract America' - but this is taking the piss a bit, right? To view these crimes against our intelligence more than art in general, follow this link --->here<---

And then once you're done laughing your head off at how work like that managed to make it into a gallery such as the Saatchi, read all of the accompanying write ups beneath each piece. Take note of the flowery language and imagery used to beef up what is essentially nothing.

Yes, there is an inordinate amount of skill here. No, unfortunately, it is not down to the artist who produced the work.

I can't emphasise how much this gets on my wick. Art should have the ability to give you everything you would read in an essay, without the essay itself. I myself am studying A-level fineart and finding it increasingly difficult to annotate my work, knowing full well that I'm stating the obvious majorly. The pictures and the work don't need the words as well, unless it's a part of the composition as a whole.

Either that, or I'm so dim and narrow minded that I simply cannot seem to see into the realms of what these writers can to then add their explanations to the work. I feel that if the artist had the bare faced cheek to call this 'art' and the gallery organisers felt it was simply that good for display... they shouldn't need anything else. No additions. No parenthesis - just the supposed artwork in itself.

Why are the explanations there? Because everyone knows that in reality, those empty works would simply remain empty and even more pointless than before.

Until next we speak (and hopefully I'll be in a somewhat more chipper mood),
Xan
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