Deeper Underground
Reading Marc-Édouard Nabe's book brings many many questions to me. How come there is so much mediocre (at best) stuff going around these days? Up till about the end of the modern art movement the arts were so alive with innovation (the real kind, not sticking an acrylic lobster on a crystal chandelier), authenticity, sincerity. Integrity.
What happened? Have people become dumber or has everyone just given up on the idea that there is such a thing as an original thought anymore? Have all good ideas been had?
I don't think so.
It seems it is more a question of how fast and how complex we perceive society to be, or how the actors in society (what some pseudo-intellektchuls would term "movers & shakers") want us to think it is. We work relatively fewer hours than our predecessors, and yet it seems they had more time to enjoy life, think and appreciate art. Some of them would then go on to become instructors of art, music, literature, and they knew their subject very well and had immense respect and admiration for the work of an artist and the creative process.
But now... Now what matters most is whether they can sell plastic.
Happy people or people who are reasonably satisfied with their existence don't feel a constant and unstoppable need to buy plastic all the time. They can sit and read, or walk and look at trees (ok, only for so long; after a while one tree looks very much like another...), talk to each other, play a boardgame, write. They have an internal dialogue that can last for a long time depending on the mental stimuli they get.
If the mental stimuli are of a negligible quality, the subject ends up losing interest in general. This happens rather quickly, too. The sadness of it all increases exponentially when the person never had anyone to point out what's good...what elevates, what makes one think about something, or how to look for quality. Because the Internet is wonderful when it comes to holding an unconscionable amount of data, but how can anyone find any of it if the object of the research is unknown?
Mediocrity in art is perhaps the only thing that can destroy the human spirit from within, long-term. Everyone says that's Communism, that Communism is against human nature and the "natural laws of competition". I'd like someone to explain to me as though I were an 8yo what human nature is, that's the first thing (Foucault & Chomsky couldn't in their debate Justice vs. Power, so good luck). Secondly, even supposing this is true, I doubt Communism can do as much damage to a human soul as can bad art in sheep's clothing.
Nabe thinks it is reversible. He says it is a question of diving into one's inherent abilities to tell the wheat from the chaff - he thinks we all have it to some extent, I'm not sure I agree with him. Maybe he's right, but that relies on one coming into contact with wheat.
The drama though is that many never do. Many people never get a chance to touch real wheat, only processed and bleached and with a thousand additives inside, shrink-wrapped, with a barcode on top, and a uniform price tag. Miles Davis or Chopin costs the same thing as Britney Spears and Lady Gaga. "Tutu" is "Oops! I Did It Again".
How, then, can people draw any kind of lasting joy from the arts or believe art elevates the soul if they're told it sounds like some guy shouting at the camera or a/another woman with visible undies and lipgloss shaking her bottom at a guy's face (not that there's anything wrong with that) or like Jeff Koons, whose name makes me think of another word and "whose art only works if placed against an outstanding background such as Versailles" (MEN, interview below). Or like that one French guy whose name escapes me (philistine that I am) who wrote an entire book that has as its primary "artistic quality" the fact it has no letter "e" at all?
I'm 32 years old and that is not a good defense against the accusation of reaction. But I don't think I'm being reactionary here. I admit to it freely when I commit that 'sin', make a point of it. There is no beauty in faking something, so I admit to it.
No, this is not about reaction. This is about recognizing that in order for more plastic to be sold, people must be unhappy. Then they queue for hours from Tokyo to Punta del Este to get a new PS3 which will give them a sense of renewal, innovation, freshness, when in fact it does precisely the opposite. It impedes any kind of profundity, even erroneous analyses, because it (momentarily, one hopes) steals one's capacity to reason. The same thing applies to other 'consumer goods' which come with heavy advertisement. They sell a dream, an illusion of happiness, and mediocre art is their accomplice as it numbs the mind, heart, and soul, creating a propitious terrain for mindless consumption.
.
