A thought - looking
through the book titled Louvre the collections,
published by REUNION DES MUSEES NATIONAUX, Paris, 1991, one asks
oneself the question: do we create a ‘special’
art/architecture-world of expectation and understanding by selecting
historic items and holding them up as icons for secure display, to be
put on exhibition in supervised, untouchable places for public
perusal, amazement and ‘appreciation’? Does this allow,
encourage, the perception that all and any art/architecture needs to
be unique and exceptional, indeed, remote, separate, and bespoke, if
it is to hold any value worthy of consideration: that things
‘everyday’ are of much lesser value; maybe of no value at all
because of their very common availability and context? Is value
really rooted in a marketplace mentality?
Is this why we seek
big sums of money for ‘quality’ art, knowing that the museum
exhibits are ‘priceless’? Might the logic be: therefore new work
of ‘quality’ must be priceless too, or vary in the rates of
extremes in accordance with fashion? Compare how a Francis Bacon was once getting 100,000 pounds when his best friend, Denis Wirth-Miller was
getting only 1000 pounds for his paintings: therefore Bacon is better
than Wirth-Miller. The market decides on value and quality because
great works are at the very top, applauded as being literally beyond value, incomparable - see: Jon Lys Turner The Visitors’ Book In Francis Bacon’s Shadow:
The Lives of Richard Chopping and Denis Wirth-Miller Constable
2017.
Is this a pattern
that defines how even young artists consider their efforts, naively
putting huge figures on their work of whatever peculiar or particular genius or otherwise, just to prove that it is
‘art’?
Is this museum
display ethic why architects seek to exhibit their work with
carefully selected, framed images, to match the quality of isolation
in the displays seen in the great museums like the Louvre? - see: https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2019/10/taylor-square-warehouse-variations-in.html
Do we interpret all
things of value only as something remote, unique, and different;
something elsewhere and otherwise from ordinary living that sees the
need to isolate anything considered valuable, just as museums do,
leaving the everyday mocked as base ordinariness?
Do our art galleries
attempt to recreate the museum context, thereby placing a similar 'untouchable' reading and understanding onto the items being displayed, whatever
these might be, and whatever the quality might be? Does context
create expectations developed by the museum – if it is on display,
it is meaningful and expensive, whatever the object or act?
Is it in this manner
that we have been trained to see art as something uniquely special,
made only by people who are creatively different, uniquely quirky?
Is this why we
tolerate the behaviour of our artists, expect them to be strangely
variant; even outrageously different: the more so, the more
creative? Again, compare Francis Bacon and his contemporaries - see: Jon Lys Turner The Visitors’ Book In Francis Bacon’s Shadow: The Lives of Richard Chopping and Denis Wirth-Miller Constable 2017 - where the world of artists is described; where (then illicit) homosexuality, heavy drinking, and
gambling are the core daily activities after a morning’s painting,
if the homosexual activities, the drinking, and the gambling have
stopped within the 24-hour cycle to enable the restart .
Is living ‘on the
edge’ the equivalent of, a necessary part of things interesting,
edgy, avant-garde – read this to mean ‘rare, smart things of quality and
value’ – in art/architecture?: compare Lucien Freud and his life and
work - see - https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2017/05/freud-on-painting.html
How do we get art
and architecture back into the ordinary everyday life and its basic
expectations?
How do we ever
regain the understanding that an artist is not a special kind of
person; but that every person is a special kind of artist, as Ananda
Coomaraswamy said of traditional art. It was a position also promoted
by Eric Gill: see - https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2019/10/secondhand-books-and-meaning.html
Have we lost the
ability to ever do work like that we now hanker and drool over in
museums?
How do we regain our
skills and confidence; genuine confidence, not the con man
promotional huff and puff declaring ‘How great I am’ that we hear
more and more of today both from politicians and
artists/authors/architects.
What do we have to
do?
When did we start
putting things into the storage of museums for special protection and
adulation? On the first museum, see:
The word ‘curiosities’ is worth noting. Do we try to see all art and architecture as unique curiosities for our entertainment, perhaps enchantment, with museums merely indulging in things curious rather than seriously stimulating our curiosity?
We do need to try to
regain, to understand, the traditional position that created most things in our
museums that we now admire. We should expect quality art - good work
(Schumacher - see; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/313764.Good_Work) - in the everyday without outrageous pomp and glorious
circumstance; work that can culturally enrich without being created
for promenading, praise, and profit alone.
The traditional
artist was anonymous; such artwork was never signed or attributed;
there were no heroes in that era.
It seems that one
possibility is that we need to rediscover the roots of meaning before
we can express them.
We are keen to line
up to see the ‘wonders’ that we believe we are no longer capable
of; just look at the Louvre: but how many items are seen as they
might have been when they were made? Ananda Coomaraswamy pointed out the way
that we bring our perceptions and understandings to traditional art
and see it ‘aesthetically.’ We need to learn from it by seeing it
in its context, by understanding its origins.: see - Christian and Oriental Philosophy of Art, Dover: Why exhibit works of art?
Why are we so
prepared to accept this work and its ambitions as being beyond us, with our being happy
with it to be behind glass just for our visual amazement?
Why are we incapable
of creating work that leaves us unable to marvel enough, as Martin
Lings said of traditional art? (For an introduction to Martin Lings and his writings, see: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/41576.Martin_Lings).
We seem adroit at
using the notions behind marvel – astonishment, silence, amazement,
difference, etc. - as a fake guide, a checklist, to pretend quality:
c.f. Gehry - as if amazement might necessarily mean or equate to quality.
Consider a Persian
rug; Islamic calligraphy. We have been told to be neurotic about the
Muslim world, but it has as much to teach us today as it has done in
the past.
Maybe we need to
close our museums, as they appear to have played a role in creating
‘the tourist,’ folk strolling around the world just to gawk at
different things in their bucket lists - (see - http://springbrooklocale.blogspot.com/2012/06/who-or-what-is-tourist.html ) – people who
bring everything with them and take nothing away but their prejudices
that continue on with them.
Here seeing is just
a matter of ME and a selfie, a tick in a box; a termination that
starts yet another quest, as though this was a search following a
detailed map for a lost treasure that will never be revealed or known, because the act of tourism, of MY being there, is superior to any search or understanding; to any discovery.#
We need to do more
about our ways of seeing if things are to change – yes, even
architectural seeing: see - https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2019/11/architectural-seeing.html
#
NOTE
24th
November 2019
The phenomenon of
the ‘tourist’ is summed up in this ABC ‘Life’ report -
'I did champagne
toe shots during a hurricane': Why we feel invincible while
travelling overseas.
It is all fun, games
and ME! There is a total disregard for anything else. The real
concern is that, to encourage visitors and their money, places are
now designing experiences for this behaviour; and when these places
are not there, the local character or ‘difference’ is interpreted
in the same manner, as if it might be a fun park. Nothing is ever
learned. The only ambition seems to be to better the previous
challenge on social media. Museums see themselves in between –
wanting to attract these masses while trying to be serious, with the
first intention always diminishing the latter.
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