The Case For Shitty Abstract Art

   Oftentimes the simplest answer is correct. While we may heap nuance on any subject, constructing a logical scaffold to prop up any flawed idea, it is frequently the outside perspective that cuts through the noise. Like a laser beam of folksy common sense burning through a shield of arcane, academic jargon. You know it when you see it, bullshit.

   Elitist bullshit too. The artworld is full of it. When people whose entire life is work walk into a museum and see a bunch of scribbles hanging on a wall, why shouldn’t they bristle with bitterness when someone whispers that it cost more than a hundred accumulated lifetimes of their labor? It is unjust. It is obscene. And why should they not squint and wonder how hard it actually was to create? How long did it take? Many come to the same conclusion, My kid could make that. 

   And this perspective is chided by those within this secret club. The artworld connoisseurs and academics drolly explaining why that perspective is uninformed, base, ignorant. Borne of the ignorance that tethers them to their caste. The laymen.

   So what do these working class people do? They go see what else is to be found in the museum. They climb a set of stairs, turn a corner, and bam. Now this is art. They’ve stumbled upon the massive treasures of past centuries. Priceless artifacts of oil and sculpture. Hyper realistic jewels of masters, whose decades long dedication to their craft has withstood the rise and fall of nations. Timeless. Too beautiful to die.

   The museum’s very architecture has led these people to a conclusion. A conclusion that I believe to be a dangerous one. That art is dead. It peaked in the renaissance, the decline beginning when we turned from realism. When we stopped trying to capture reality. When technical skill became secondary to lofty, grasping statements written by artists trying to see how far they could take this ride. They gaze up in wonder at the enormous depictions of leaders astride leaping horses or landscapes of glorious beauty. Then they look at their phones and see some asshole taping a banana to a wall. Bullshit.

   I hate modern art. They say. 

  You hate contemporary art. The snobs correct.

   So here lies the danger. This conclusion that they’ve understandably stumbled upon is not only limiting, misguided, or hurtful. It is a fascist tool. A mechanism of control. The idea that only art that triumphs beauty and technical skill is valid and that all conceptual work is bullshit, is a narrative promoted by authoritarians, religious extremists and famously by Adolf Hitler himself. And he should know, he was a painter. Modern (Contemporary) art sucks.

   This point of view is growing. It is exploding on all forms of social media. The algorithms that shape our world view favors content showing eye rolling clips of corny performance art or bad paintings juxtaposed with some masterpiece of photorealism. Beads of moisture glistening with captured sunlight on the face of a gorgeous woman, rendered in oils, worthy of the timeless acclaim of the old masters. A marble statue, stone chiseled into supple perfection reminiscent of Michelangelo. And then, scribbles on a wall.

   The billionaires who control these platforms push this agenda. It is plain to see. What they want, as I see it, is to flatten art into a competitive sport. To reduce the infinite directions of human thought art can lead us into a simple, flat line from worst to best. Innumerable tendrils of thought and feeling drying up like a blocked tributary. Discrediting all other artistic paths than those trying to capture real life, without scrutiny. Art that asks no questions, challenges no concept, bares no ugly truths. Art without exploration. Weaponized nostalgia offered up in paintings of an idealized past that never truly was. Why progress? We already had perfection.

   Powerful people see art as a force akin to fire. Something of tremendous energy, capable of changing reality itself. Something imperative to control, to master, yet possible to leap the boundaries of its containment and rush across the world. Burning away the walls of ideology, religious or institutional authority, and established cultural values that seek to coral it toward some goal of theirs. It is an entity that spreads ideas and erodes convictions. Jumping from mind to mind, both shattering and cementing world views. It can stir. Rouse people from resignation or lull them into prideful subjugation. Oil paintings, poems, posters, prose laden speeches, national anthems and flags themselves. Propaganda is art.

   But artists have their own motivations. Artistic curiosity is an incentive that powerful people do not understand. It is an incentive that offers none of the rewards that placate others. They regard artists with a similar confused disdain that the ultra wealthy see those who dedicate their lives to helping others. People who give what little they have, because they want their life to mean something more than just the accumulation of money. America, as I see it, rewards unscrupulous compliance towards those that embrace its systems. Here wealth equals success. Wealth equals power. Those who march toward some unseen sirens call, shuffling past glittering piles of gold like sleepwalkers. Those who feel the cord of inspiration run through them and follow it like a guiderope into the abyss. Those who follow instincts far older than money. Those people are the artists.

   Strange creatures. Irreverent toward the sacred values of society and zealous toward their own. Repulsive, yet strangely magnetic. Irresponsible, unreliable, egotistical. (Did you catch me equating altruists to artists? That was subconscious.) Flawed conduits of some perfect energy. Self loathing, yet self important. Obsessive. Loving.

   And sometimes, the products of their spiritual seeking manifest in forms that the world comes to cherish. Every so often, one of these odd humans scribble, sing, or stumble their way into a revelation. A cultural mutation born from a sea of fellow artistic devotees. One life rising up as the millions of other creatives fade into obscurity like the sperm that failed to gain entry into this immortal orb of adulation. The work that moved this artist’s mind and body leaves even them behind, rising above death, taking root, and giving birth to something so powerful it changes everything.

   How? Sacrifice. Millions of lives dedicated to following this mysterious call of artistic discovery. A song leading us into the dark wood, hinting at some revelation about ourselves, our place in the universe. Most will fail. Their lives were not wasted though, they made art, they held a mirror to existence and possibly even added some beauty to the world. But what does that journey look like?

   Endless experimentation. Financial woes, relationship strain. Decades of labor offered up on a sacrificial offer. Mania and depression. Self doubt. Silent, rapturous revelation. Ecstasy. A mountain of bad art. Scribbles on a page. Echoes of a life dedicated to discovery marking the earth like footprints in the snow.

   Make room for the bullshit. The bad art. The corny delivery. The unattainable, unrealistic ambition. The ride that isn’t going to go any further. The failure. These are the sinews of great art. Carapices of endlessly molting philosophies. The litter of discovery. Maybe that shitty abstract art some rich person decided was worth millions was only practice. A hunch. The first step into the cave. Not the treasure hidden within.

Long live bad art.