conceptual art or 'con art'?

It was art critic Julian Spalding who had to be smuggled into Damien Hirst's Tate exhibition in April 2012 after being blacklisted by the Tate for his views. He explained,'I had dared to say what many of my colleagues secretly think: Con Art, the so-called Conceptual Art movement, is little more than a money-spinning con, rather like the emperor’s new clothes.'

The words 'emperor's new clothes' did come to mind once or twice during the class viewing of the BBC documentary How to get on in the Art World, in which Alan Yentob is visibly bewildered by the  commercialisation of contemporary art over the last two decades. At the annual Frieze Art Fair in London, super-rich collectors are courted by gallerists who are courted by artists in an intricate dance that seems to be largely about money, trend and profile and not much about 'good art', (whatever that might be and does it even matter?). 

According to Dave Hickey, doyen of American critics, the 'art' at the Fair is '98% crap', and 'price and value bear no relationship to each other'. 2012 was the year the Guardian heralded Hickey's rejection of the 'nasty stupid world of modern art' At that time Hickey described the contemporary art world as 'calcified, self-referential and hostage to the rich collectors who have no respect for what they are doing' (www.theguardian.com 28/10/12).  

Spalding recalls of the Hirst exhibition, 'What quickly becomes apparent is that it is like a religion. Everyone is strangely committed to the cult of Hirst – but few can articulate what is fantastic about a soggy, sad-looking shark, preserved in a vitrine with all the menace of a sagging sofa.' As for the artist himself he is on record as having said, (around the time he met Charles Saatchi and became the richest living artist), 'I can’t wait to get into a position to make really bad art and get away with it.’ 

So what are we to make of all that? On one hand it is all great! As art students sensing that we have to stumble and even work our way towards some kind of recognition, possibly with a financial outcome, it's suddenly so easy. It's just a big game! All the words, the hype, the cash, the profile. Just like so much of mass communication and consumerism, it's the sensational that cuts it, it's making the headline, the exhibition cover, the latest tweet.. who cares? - just get in there and think up a clever concept...

'Feed Me' Rachel McLean

I had a look online at some of the artists of British Art Show 8, which started in Leeds Art Gallery in October and which I hope to see now that it's in Edinburgh. Ciara Phillips' repeating screen prints covering whole walls, Lynette Yaidon-Boakye's oil portraits, Jessica Warboys' paintings mady by the 'performance' of wind and water at the beach, Rachel McLean's new film satirising insatiable consumerism 'Feed Me'...

I was relieved to see that reviews of BAS 8 are as varied as the earnest roll-call of critics -
Adrian Searle, Waldemar Januszak, Mark Hudson, Laura Cumming. Clearly views on 'good' and 'bad' art vary quite a bit.

Laura Cumming of the Observer describes it as 'fine morals but few thrillers', concluding that, 'Nothing much could or should be deduced about the state of art from the BAS, which is inevitably a jumble that scarcely coheres.' Highlights for her are films by John Akomfrah, James Richards and Bedwyr Williams, and although she clearly has not been impressed by Rachel McLean in the past, she admits that 'Feed Me' is 'coruscatingly creepy and astute'. She is less than positive about the 'effortfully handcrafted works' in tufted wool on canvas by Caroline Achaintre.

Adrian Searle at the Guardian complains 'where are the laughs?', and describes BAS8 as 'a super-serious riff on our toxic material world'. He picks out Bedwyr Williams humorous film as a talking bog-man, but he also likes Mikhail Karikis film about a post-industrial Italian landscape, which is uplifting, if not funny. On the whole he seems fairly underwhelmed by the show, finding parts of it, like the Akomfrah film 'dull' or even 'forgettable'.

Angell 'Tarry not Marry'

Mark Hudson of the Telegraph is not impressed by what he describes as the tone of 'breathless undergraduate cleverness'. But he at least has something positive to say about the less overtly conceptual pieces: 'On the upper floors there are signs of what looks suspiciously like a craft revival, but with a postmodern twist. Caroline Achaintre’s expressionistic shag-pile wall hangings and Aaron Angell’s cack-handed ceramic tableaux are in fact just as knowing and multi-referential as everything else here, yet they hint towards an approach that is earthier, more sensual and a lot more physical than the convoluted head games that have dominated British art for so long.'

There is no doubt that there is thought-provoking and amazingly clever stuff out there. But I have a feeling that many viewers need more than clever concepts to connect to the work they are looking at. Work that in some way asks questions rather than giving answers and hits more than one target - not just intellectual, but emotional, aesthetic, physical/ tactile, is multi-layered or multi-sensorial - can give the viewer the space to appreciate it, rather than being closed in and bombarded by 'in-your-face' head games. I find Hudson's words quite encouraging.