Why Everybody Hates Contemporary Art — and Artists?
Everybody hates contemporary art.
What a statement. Unfortunately, it is not far from the truth. Of course, that “everybody” doesn’t include those within the art world, but rather the rest of the mortals who are supposed to experience and appreciate art and the work of the artist. And they are pissed. To be quite honest, I don’t blame them. It seems contemporary artists and art institutions have done everything they could to purposely exclude people who don’t belong from being part of the conversation with the undeniable help of the education system.
Contemporary art is difficult to classify. On one side, we still have artists who use classical artistic expressions in the creation of art, such as painting and sculpture. But new media art, produced using technology such as sound art, light art, or interactive installations, is also an important part of contemporary art. It might not be as popular in museums yet, maybe due to the elitism that is at the core of what is considered fine art that belongs in a museum exhibit and what isn’t, but it exists and I would dare to say it is the future of art ―I might be a bit biased as I have a BA in Art & Technology.
So contemporary art is broad in its form, but the key to its confusing nature for regular audiences is in its content and the attached value. Let’s look at a very recent example: the invisible sculpture by Italian artist Salvatore Garau, auctioned for $18,000. This artwork is literally made out of nothing, being the audience’s responsibility to shape the sculpture with their own imagination as per the artist’s intent. For someone who doesn’t belong to the art world, this of course feels like a joke, especially when asking for that amount of money that is what we align to its value. Who can blame them? I have studied art, I am ―supposedly― an artist myself, and I also find it ridiculous. Conceptual art is not new, it started in the XX Century, with its peak during the 1960s thanks to the Fluxus movement, with important artists such as Yoko Ono ―yes, she was a conceptual artist before John Lennon. But it is also true that conceptual art has always struggled with popularity due to its very abstract nature. Some people never understand it, and those who do, don’t see the point. It is an art movement that belongs to the artistic elite.
However, news media love to report on these things. They know they are going to create controversy among regular people, even though this type of art was not made for them ―which I find very problematic in itself, but we’ll get there. Like it happened with the banana on the wall back in 2019. Just to refresh your memory, another Italian artist, Maurizio Cattelan, exhibited a banana on a wall with duct tape he titled Comedian. Indeed, comedy. But it became newsworthy and even more of a joke when it was actually sold for $120,000. A work that, only in the materials used, would cost $1. What that amount is saying is that the artist’s concept and idea are worth $120,000. And that, to common people, is not only a joke, it’s an insult.
It is no secret that the art world has become the largest money-laundering system we have nowadays in our society. It has been for years. Millions of dollars get exchanged almost tax-free in the shape of art auctions and museum donations, everybody knows it and yet keeps doing it. I wrote this once and I’ll write it again: art is no longer art under capitalism. Art has nothing to do with beauty or aesthetic experience, however problematic those concepts are, as I also wrote before. But art should not be a commodity either at the service of criminal activities. This creates an image in the collective mind that art is a frivolity, something reserved for a corrupted elite. And, unfortunately, the new game player in the art town, NFTs, is not making this go away, with a digital artwork turned into an NFT created by Beeple sold for $69 million at a Christie’s auction in March 2021.
Are we surprised people hate contemporary art and artists? I am not. In fact, I understand it. Because art has never been made for regular audiences. The art spectator is very specific, not everybody can become one. Because where will the distinction be otherwise? Should art then be for everyone? Would it be art if it was? What would happen to the economic benefits of art? Would its monetary value decrease and its artistic value increase? Would we stop using monetary value and artistic value as synonyms meaning “good”? How much does the education system have to change in order for common people to feel comfortable experiencing modern and contemporary art?
I’ll start with the last question because I think it’s one of the keys to unravel the rest. The artistic education given today is quite outdated in my opinion. Unless you decide to study art as a specialization in university, the notion of art you will have is based on history: these are the characteristics of the renaissance, the gothic, the neoclassic style, etcetera. We are told that art is highly-skilled figurative representation. I know this because I thought so too and I have had conversations with many different people who agree that art is whatever was made before the XX Century, meaning not abstraction. And why is this idea so implemented in our concept of art? I think ―and I repeat it’s my opinion and what I have been discussing for some years now― art history is taught as a tale of great human ―well, men― achievement without a deep connection with its socio-political and socio-economic historical contexts. This is quite evident when people are confronted with modern art, that expanding almost all the XX Century when abstract art in all its forms started to become the norm over figurative, classical “fine” art. Generally, we fail to understand modern art because we don’t really comprehend as we should the historical context of the late XIX Century ―industrialization, early capitalism, big cities, countryside exodus, machinery, technological advances, new social classes, early mainstream media― and its consequences into the XX Century ―wars and destruction never seen before, early globalization, communications, alienation of society, disassociation. Modern art was a reflection of all these extreme, fast changes society was experiencing, and contemporary art is in a way following those because they are still part of today’s society. If we don’t understand our past, we can’t understand our present. And this is true for art as it is for our own life.
In an ideal world, we would all have a good and accessible education, not only in the arts. But that’s not good for business. Art institutions are mostly private, so they benefit from people who want to get educated properly in the arts, whether as an artist or as a critic or historian, therefore creating a new social class bred into cultural capital that would distinguish and elevate them from the rest. They will be the ones to perpetuate the extreme capitalist practices that dominate the art market. Of course, there are small artists who don’t make millions. But they are in the shadows, and some of them are adapting to what the general public likes in art, with a surge in figurative representation. Is that bad? Absolutely not. Everyone is entitled to create whatever they want. But I think that doesn’t help the audiences move forward in their understanding and experience of art. Abstract art, in all its complexity and complications, allows us to stop, to think, to connect, to feel, and to understand a part of ourselves and our society. But we don’t want to think and be challenged. And that’s a problem that goes beyond art into how we confront the world.
Art ―as it is today― is not universal. And its intrinsic association with excessive amounts of money and its secluded, elitist nature have made the public weary and suspicious of contemporary artists and their modes of expression, creating a tense relationship that feels difficult to save. Artists and art institutions are failing to communicate effectively contemporary art to the general public, and the general public is also failing at putting effort into understanding the new language of art to break away from classical concepts. So we have entered into a situation in which we are content with not being important to each other. And that’s a huge mistake. Because art has a role to play in society. And, seeing the way things are nowadays, we all need it more than ever.
