Crap No-one Needs, #16

The Art Establishment



Have you ever thrown up on the pavement? You might be an artist. Ever spilled some paint on the floor? Yep, sounds like you're an artist. Ever cut a cat in half to see what the insides look like? You could possibly be a psychopath, but you probably have a great future as a famous artist. The whole art establishment is so infested with useless wankers who wouldn't know real art if it crawled up their anus and tickled their spleen, that there's really no qualification required anymore.

Remember the "Piss Christ" photograph? Some moron pisses in a glass and puts a plastic crucifix in it, takes a photo and calls it art. The National Endowment for the Arts, a $155 million Congress-created boondoggle for worthlessness, puts this and other similar shit on exhibition at the taxpayer's expense and calls it art. If there was ever a sector of human endeavor that exhibited the Emperor's New Clothes phenomenon it's the art world: if you think some dozy tart's unmade bed, half a cow in a glass case or someone's crude painting with their own excrement isn't real art it's because "You're just a middle-class drone who doesn't comprehend the artist's deep appreciation of the human condition, communicated through a complex medium in order to bypass our natural emotional filters". In other words, if you think the emperor is naked, you must be stupid.

If all these wankers were just running around on welfare pissing on crucifixes then I wouldn't care, but they're doing it on our dime. It's not the business of government to be subsidizing the arts - if something is good enough then someone will pay to see it. Those that clamor for government arts funding (which, let's face it, means arts funded by taxes expropriated from working people against their will) realize full well that given a choice the working public will not voluntarily pay to support someone who spends his day pissing in a glass and taking pictures of it. Without government intervention art would have to survive on its merits, which would immediately condemn half the liberal arts establishment to get a real job.

Yeah, I know, people pay millions for Damien Hirst so-called artworks. which doesn't mean they have any artistic merit, but that's an entirely different phenomenon: art collection. The whole point of that is for people with more dollars than braincells to buy stuff so they can show off to other such people how wealthy and "enlightened" they are. It doesn't have to be good, only "desirable", an attribute conferred by an art establishment so removed from what the real world thinks as to have rendered their opinions meaningless.

Here's some art rules to live by:

1. If The Bloke Down The Pub Could Do It, It's Not Art

When we watch professional sports we know that the quarterback, sprinter, tennis player or goalie is performing at a level that we couldn't; that's why we pay to see them. They demonstrate excellence. It's the same thing with art. When I see a Bruegel painting I know I couldn't have done it, plus it's interesting to look at. Half of what passes for modern art requires no real talent other than the art of self-promotion and the ability to talk bollocks, which brings me to:

2. If You Have To Explain It, It's Not Art

If you could walk right by the so-called art and have no idea that it was art at all, then it isn't. Notice how modern art requires a soundtrack of interpretation and commentary to help the observer "understand and appreciate" the artist's message. This is a clear sign that it's a load of old bollocks; the number of accompanying words is directly proportional to the speed with which it should be consigned to the dumpster.

3. If It's Not Painted Or Sculpted, It's Not Art

Since music and dance are their own categories, art is a term for things of beauty that are static and to be looked at. This includes pictures, sculptures and maybe certain photography. That's it. It does not include "art installations" which consist of crap just thrown together, or people engaging in "interactive art". This is just bollocks. You know it's bollocks because normal people, uncontaminated by art indoctrination, would walk up to it and exclaim "What a load of old bollocks". Living in a room for fourteen days is not art.

4. If It Needs A Famous Name Attached, It's Not Art

What's the chance that if I'd pissed in a glass and put a crucifix in it, I would have got it into an exhibition in New York? If I cut a dog in half and put it in formaldehyde would I get my own show and have someone pay a million for it? Fuck no. If you took a Constable picture and took the name off you'd still walk past and think "Fucking good picture of a haywain, that." If you walked past the glass of piss you'd think "Jesus, I think someone pissed in that glass. Is there a tramp in here?" So just imagine it's not Tracy Emin's unmade bed, or Damien Hirst's half a cow, or Andres Serrano's glass of piss. What if Albert Bloggs or Dave Brown had done it? Would it still be good enough for an exhibition? Of course it wouldn't - it's not real art, it's just a bunch of art establishment wankers crawling up each others' arses.

Fundamentally the art scene is infested with pseudo-intellectual wankers, and if it that's what makes them happy then good luck to them. Except when the government, laboring under the biggest deficit in history, finds it essential that they confiscate money from working people to hand out to so-called artists who are just climbing over each other to be more "shocking" and "controversial" while not being required to exhibit any real talent.

Here's a suggestion to all those cutting edge art tossers: the Piss Christ is old news - if you want to be really "out there", why not take a dump on the Koran and photograph that? No, I didn't think so. Not so brave when some Islamist would cut off your tiny balls and make an exhibition out of you?


Copyright © 2009 Edward Bison