The first thing to understand about contemporary art is that it doesn’t exist. It has
long since been replaced by ritual.
Art was once something made and appreciated by a select few. A distinction between
high and low culture echoed the class distinctions in society. The democratic era
heralded ideas such as universal education and with it universal access to Art. Of
course, people everywhere already had access to popular art. But, in a sleight of hand,
democratisers persisted with the idea of the museum’s superiority. What was good for
you had to be made accessible.
This process reaches into all corners of the globe. Today we are attempting to make
this goodness available to eels. This is, of course, one of our rituals; instead of making
art, we make art available.
What of all the museums and curators you say. Don’t they deal in Contemporary Art?
Of course not. The curators, uniformly attired in their slimming black vestments, are
our high priests of ritual. They’ve long abandoned attempts to distinguish art from
dross and instead rely upon scriptures that dictate that in place of art they pursue a
thematic agenda.
Like the more successful missionaries of old who adapted their Christian practices to
co-exist with those of the animistic head hunters amongst whom they found
themselves, today’s successful curator adapts to a public (here eels) with no
understanding or interest in Art.
Instead of talking about art, the trick is to connect with broader themes already of
interest to the prospective art lovers. So, for example, here it might be something to
do with rivers. The rivers of myth, the river as source, the river of life, the
ecologically bankrupt rivers of the contemporary world, the very river that perhaps
runs past our curator’s museum. Let’s call the show ‘Deep Water, the River in Art’.
Naturally the eels won’t immediately be keen to fork out for admission. They’d
imagined that the intricate looping underwater patterns they formed in collaborative
unison were enough art for any animal. Though happy to spend the rest of their day
eating and having sex, they somehow found themselves in a museum. (Their one
compensation – their folk-art patterning – was thereby recognised as Art.)
In the museum, some encouragement will be needed for the wandering worshipper
with the attention span of an eel. The curator will engage artists to provide all manner
of thematic distraction, all of it leading the viewer back to the water.
So, you say, isn’t this stuff Contemporary Art? Are you kidding? All the oversized
knickknacks and tedious memorabilia? These are votive objects, adjuncts to worship.
The artists will be highly professional and totally unskilled. The curator will
illuminate the importance of their ideas. Their apparent lack of skill in carrying out
their ideas will be a positive – making them less remote from their viewers. Lest this
flattening suggest that the museum is merely a social space like any other, curators,
like good priests, ensure that while the doors are open, the interior remains sacrosanct.
At the opening of the doors – a ceremony called ‘The Opening’ – we experience the
ritual with the wine goblets and the whispered imprecations, sorry incantations.
As with odd bits of rotting timber that have apparently felt the touch of the saviour’s
lips, so with the various keepsakes and bric-a-brac over which the curator has waved
the leaves of a catalogue essay. These items are for the moment blessed. Just as that
dried up bit of flesh is Christ’s foreskin, so these items are Art; and a brisk trade
ensues.
Perhaps, you say, these rituals are the real art? You may be right – but as traditional
practices they can hardly be considered contemporary art. It only uses tradition when
conducting the perennial ritual known as ‘The Overthrowing of Tradition’.
The best chance such votive objects have of becoming art is some time in the future,
when their motivating agendas have been forgotten and, like an oddly shaped bowl
left behind by an extinct tribe, their ritual function has long since been abandoned.
Once again somebody will have the bright idea of calling objects with no discernible
purpose by the name Art. But, of course, by then they won’t be contemporary.
Here is an example of a non-existent contemporary artwork. It’s one I made myself, in
the year 2000. With another artist, Chris Fortescue, I gave free haircuts in a gallery in
Vienna. With the blessing of the curator, we plied our non-existent skills on willing
gallery goers. (The photo, I can assure you, shows the subject prior to his haircut.)
It was an idea that had been kicking around and when the Vienna show came up we
submitted our proposal (contemporary art is always foretold in a proposal.) for our
project to the government in Sydney and received two air fares to Vienna.
At the opening we cut hair. It was all a bit of a show really. We had all the props of
the hairdresser – except a mirror. So our customers had to put their trust in us. After
the opening we took turns cutting in the afternoons. One day a woman came in with a
pile of thick curly hair. I had a very small pair of scissors and had been snipping away
cautiously for 40 minutes with little result. I thought I had better apologise for my
inefficiency. “Not at all,” she said. “I’m enjoying the slow going; when I came in here
I felt uncertain in these galleries. Now I feel at ease. It is as though the whole place
has been transformed while you’ve been cutting.”
Just at that moment I realised that it didn’t matter that contemporary art didn’t exist.
Simon Barney