To begin
with, I must confess that I know nothing about art. What I only know is that anyone who tries to give it a definition or a scope may
just run into controversy if not trouble, because even those who are called
artists or call themselves artists can’t really give a definition. If the
person who makes such an attempt is a politician or someone who calls
himself/herself a politician, that’s even worse. Call it ambitious or stupid,
depending on your choice of language.
British
Culture Secretary Maria Miller stirred up a storm a few days ago when she
talked about economic potentials brought by cultural industries and said that
art has to make an economic case if public money is to be spent on it. Her
remark was, perhaps ironically, made at the British Museum. Back in Hong Kong, DAB
lawmaker Chan Kam-lam also sparked outrage by arguing that anything with a
political element is out of the scope of art at a Legislative Council committee
meeting which discussed plans for the West Kowloon Cultural District’s M+ Museum.
I don’t think I need to give examples or an elaboration to rebut Mr. Chan’s
comment, for I think it falls into the category of common sense and any serious
reader who would like to delve into the relationship between art and politics
can find plenty of articles written by people who are much more qualified than
me to do this job. These two seemingly unrelated controversies are in fact related.
In her speech Ms. Miller cited Hong Kong’s West Kowloon project as an example
of business opportunities for the British cultural arena, saying to her
audience that “I am sure
some of you are eyeing up the possibilities already.” (Her full speech
at http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2013/04/24/culture-secretary-maria-miller-s-arts-speech-in-full). So British artists who are eyeing up
the possibilities brought by West Kowloon may be interested in finding out
whether their artworks would have to be considered ‘apolitical’ to be qualified
for exhibition there.
The display
of the ‘inflatable faeces’ (http://hypebeast.com/2013/4/check-out-paul-mccarthys-pile-of-feces-and-other-unique-inflatable-sculptures-video)
in West Kowloon has heated up discussion among Hongkongers of what constitute art
and what do not. Reports say its
creator, American artist Paul McCarthy, designed it to challenge the tradition
concept of art. I wonder… If this piece of ‘poop’ stood next to a genuine public
toilet, would anyone still call it art? I also wonder, since Dutch artist
Florentijn Hofman’s giant rubber duck
(http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1222646/friendly-rubber-duck-makes-splash-hong-kong) has drawn millions of exclamations of “Oh how cute!” around the world, why don’t we at least show a level of excitement proportionate to its size when we see a little one in the bathroom?
(http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1222646/friendly-rubber-duck-makes-splash-hong-kong) has drawn millions of exclamations of “Oh how cute!” around the world, why don’t we at least show a level of excitement proportionate to its size when we see a little one in the bathroom?
With no fancy plan on a Sunday afternoon
after submitting my dissertation proposal, I visited the Arnolfini gallery in
Bristol. Not looking for an answer to these questions but just to go for a walk,
not even knowing what exhibition was currently on. As I entered the first
exhibition room on the ground floor, I saw no painting and no sculpture but all
questionnaires and letters on the wall. They were correspondences between the
late American conceptual artist Don
Celender and many other people including artists, chefs, broadcasters, bureaucrats
and managers of various organisations. Are questionnaire surveys art? Hm, not
that I had thought of. One of the projects showcased was called the ‘Ignored
and Neglected Artist Survey’, in which Celender posed the question ““In your view, which artist from any period has been the
most sorely ignored, or neglected?” to his fellow artists. Some of his
respondents gave straight-forward answers by naming an artist or a few, in some
cases themselves. One gave a very insightful reply which made the questioner
look somewhat stupid – the most sorely ignored and neglected artists are the
ones called ANONYMOUS! Another one said recognition might not matter for
artists after all. So, why care to dispute whether the poop in West Kowloon or
the globetrotting duck are artworks or not?
I still have no answer to the question of
what art is. If anyone does, please offer me some insight.
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| Art? Politics? |
