Beauty in the eye of the beholder - or the elite?
By Lynne Wright
Montreal


Whenever I visit a public gallery I actually head for the contemporary exhibit first. Landscapes, portraits and Biblical tableaus are nice, but l'm a modern, intelligent person with an appetite for the unusual, and I want to see art that is going to stir my flaccid brain as well as delight my eyes.

Despite one or two highlights, however, I inevitably leave the modern section feeling like the straight man for an elaborate joke that has just whizzed over my head like a sagely curated custard pie. So many works, purchased with great care and prominently displayed—yet most of them escape me entirely. I want to like them, or at least to appreciate them, but I just can't.

The champions of modern art sniff at the general public's unsophisticated taste claiming that we will accept as great art only those works that fit into traditional styles of expression. On the contrary, most people accept the notion that part of a gallery's function is to exhibit works that push the boundaries of conventional artistic expression. And there is public interest in modern art, as evidenced by the number of people who do make an effort to see what the galleries have to offer.

Unfortunately, the gallery administrators who claim that the public is too ignorant to understand the exhibits do little to enlighten us. The bold and curious who refer to title plaques discover what they had already guessed—that the confounding oeuvre is executed on canvas with paint and inevitably, irritatingly "Untitled." Guided tours are helpful, but not accessible to everyone. What text is provided in catalogues tends to be written in almost incomprehensible artspeak that is as elliptical as the works themselves, or too brief to provide readers with any meaningful context in which they can begin to understand the art.
Is modern art really so complex and important that society must support a cadre of intellectuals to study and glorify it? What the art aristocrats fail to acknowledge is that their world is plagued by a self-serving elitism that not only alienates the very people they claim to be trying to enlighten, but encourages and perpetuates an absurdly inflated pricing system for pieces that have no meaning and no aesthetic value for the people who are paying for them.

The public doesn't complain when millions are spent on a painting done in the classical style. It is evident to anyone that such artists as Caravaggio, Rembrandt and Michelangelo were masters of form and colour who must have spent years perfecting their craft. Their subject matter was limited to what churches and patrons were willing to pay for, but because they celebrated basic human qualities such as joy and anguish, love and despair, their work still resonates with a beauty and depth of feeling that speaks to us all.

It is this emotional quality that people respond to, and that they find lacking in highly abstract minimalistit works. The public doesn´t mind being challenged by contemporary pieces whose style and subject matter may be deviant or abrasive, as long as there is some small foothold for understanding within the work. People may not understand cubism, but they can look at a Picasso and see beyond the distortion or reality to appreciate the mastery of form and colour, as well an emotive quality that illuminates his work despite its unconventional style. But what does a piece like Barnett Newman's Voice of Fire (bought by the National Gallery for $1.8 million) offer the viewer other than befuddlement?
Glenn Lowry, director of the Art Gallery of Ontario, wrote in The Globe and Mail (Communicating In: The Key of Art— Nov. 3) that "the most enduring and profound work of art . . . are often the very ones that are most difficult at first to understand." Perhaps; certainly Van Gogh's paintings did not popular until long after his death. But because the themes of his work were universal, people were able to accept what was once a radical style.

What themes are evident in Voice of Fire? What enduring mysteries does it hold? None, unless you are an art scholar. Even then, it's possible that it has no meaning beyond whatever the art intellectuals have constructed for it. lf so, we must question whether it has value to society as a whole.

If a painting needs an extensive written explanation to be understood, perhaps it should be considered merely as an illustration to an easy on semantics. And while art scholars may be fascinated by this ongoing experimentation, they should not arrogantly assume that the public will willingly foot the bill for an expensive discourse carried on among an elite circle. These pieces may, in time, prove to be "significant" works, but they may. just as easily turn out to be nothing more than feeble deviants in the evolution of art.

The reason why there is no public outcry when the National Gallery millions on a Baroque painting is not that the public’s perception of great art comes from blind obedience to a trite sense of aesthetics. Rather, it sees value in an artistic tradition that celebrated a high level of craftsmanship seldom reproduced today. Also, it is not difficult to accept something rare and hundreds years old would have an accrued value resulting in a hefty price tag.

For all its experience and informed intelligence, the art elite has yet to come up with an even slightly plausible reason why a simple canvas bearing nothing more than three vertical stripes could be worth almost $2 million. We can only assume that the price has been inflated by a conspiracy—deliberate or subconscious—by the elite to protect its own interests.

By creating the myth that if a piece is ''difficult,'' it must therefore held a deep and secret meaning and hence be a valuable contribution to the pursuit of some elusive truth, critics and curators encourage artists to price their work at ridiculously high levels. Art dealers, who have a vested interest in getting the highest possible price for a painting, use he dogmatic artspeak of the theorists to convince buyers that contemporary works, no matter how simple they may appear, ate leaded with a significance that only the truly enlightened can appreciate. The buyer, seduced by the dealer's unintelligible eloquence and by the desire to prove his or her sophistication, coupled with the belief that if a piece is expensive then it mast be good, buys into the myth.

If a private collector wishes to spend millions on what may or may not be a modern masterpiece, thereby becoming either a shrewd investor or a dupe, it is entirely the collector's business. But when a cloistered few decide to spend outrageous amounts of public money on controversial pieces, they had better be prepared for the inevitable outcry with a credible explanation of their actions. It is clear by the lingering bitterness of the debate that the public is still not convinced, and that the art establishment doesn't really care.

Maybe the galleries are right. Maybe they are buying important pieces of art that will enrich future generations that hopefully will be better able to appreciate them, and that what seems like an extravagance today will prove to have been a wise investment. But I can't help feeling that in 200 years, when people file through the contemporary collection, like us, they will pause briefly in front of pieces such as Voice of Fire shake their heads and move on.