is this really art

One of my greatest passions is art. At least once a week, I visit either an exhibition or a gallery opening. There are fantastic opportunities to do this here in London, particulary as the choice is now wider and more varied than ever before. But what are we truly looking at – and what makes it Art?

Personally, I find this question very hard to answer. Maybe because the current definition of art is so broad, and its limits so ill-defined. But when I heard a comment from a radio programme about the Tate Gallery stating that there are only two kinds of art: good and bad, this makes things pretty simple, don’t you think?

Have you ever been at an exhibition or a gallery and thought to yourself, is this really art? I have been in situations where I have no longer been able to categorize what I was seeing and experiencing. In the end, it all comes down to your own personal interpretation and at which level you decipher it on.

A work of art does not necessarily provide answers, but instead poses questions. And maybe you’re not even supposed to ‘understand’. It’s something for which I don’t really have an answer.

Back in the old days, art was easier to categorize; sculpture, painting, etchings or maybe even photography. But everything changed across Europe, at the start of the last century, with the rise of the Surrealist movement.

The Surrealist movement was led by Andre Breton together with Salvador Dali, Magritte, Man Ray and Marx Ernst, to mention but a few. An exhibition of surrealist art recently opened at London’s Tate Modern Gallery, www.tate.org.uk. This new artistic rebellion took a stand against the traditional and changed the way we look at art forever.

The art cartel
Fine art deals with politics, religion, revolution, cultural documentation, decoration and communication; the list is practically endless. But art does not only exist in, and of, itself, it depends a great deal upon its audience and the institutions that buy and sponsor it. They are also called the ‘art cartel’. The cartel tells the rest of the world what is hot property.

These established institutions are often based in New York or London. Artists from all over the world rush there to study art, art and even more art, and of course to be where it all happens.

In London, the areas of Whitechapel and Hoxton, just east of the city’s financial centre, have become the art ghetto’s Mecca. This fast growing popularity has meant that now it is almost impossible to find an art studio in this area, it is from here the new ‘Eastenders’ were produced. Some kind of ‘Big Brother’ TV show for the art world, a documentary following a group of artists and curators in the run up to the ‘Calypso’ exhibition in London. At the end we see the opening on live television, where the established art dealer Charles Saatchi, www.saatchi-saatchi.com, bought a huge pile of trash from the artists Tim Noble and Sue Webster. This gave rise to sensational reports in the newspapers and on television.

The trash look
This helped create a trend based upon the rejection of prevailing ideals of beauty. ‘The trash look’ sparked off a similar uproar as when the Tate Britain bought a brick and, a later incident when Rachel Whitehead was awarded the Turner Prize for an enormous plaster block she had created. Another foundation awarded her the prize for the ‘worst artist’ of that same year.

The artist Damien Hirst also hit the headlines thanks to his nomination for the Turner prize. His entry included a cow and calf, sliced in half, mother and child placed inside two large, separate glass containers and preserved in formaldehyde. Later he became notorious for an art installation which made use of ashtrays filled with ash and cigarette stubs, spread out in the corner of a gallery. This corner installation was removed by mistake by a cleaner after the opening night. The cleaner was then hailed as the ‘best art critic of the year’ by a London newspaper. It wrote that, for once, there is someone who can tell the difference between art and rubbish.

The Turner Prize is organised by the Tate Britain Gallery. This year it is to be handed over by Madonna, in a high profile award ceremony broadcast live on television. Everything Madonna does is in, and right now it is in, to be in the world of art.

She has become London’s new darling ‘Madge’ after marrying the British filmmaker Guy Ritchie and turning her back on America. The artists nominated for the Turner prize this year were: the photographer Richard Billingham, the installation artists Martin Creed and Mike Nelson and the video artist Isaac Julien.

Indoor activities, such as art exhibitions, are important in a city like London where it rains so often. And it certainly rained a lot when my five-year-old son and I visited the New Ocean exhibition by Doug Aitkin at the Serpentine Gallery, Hyde Park, www.serpentinegallery.org.

After fighting our way through heavy traffic, followed by mud and huge puddles, we finally found a parking meter that was working. Soaked by the rain, we arrived at this adorable little pavilion situated in the park by Kensington Gardens. The show consisted of fantastic video installations, with the sound and pictures of water, the ocean and melting ice. We started out in the basement, which is full of water pipes and had never previously been opened, but had been converted especially for this installation. All the walls were painted blue.

Tactile and visual
For my son and I, this encounter with art was really about the inner and the external world where the two come together as one in the most literal way. We were sitting soaked on the floor while looking at the beautiful video installations, it was at the same time a visual and tactile experience. Suddenly I became clear about the true essence of art – that being touched by what you experience will spark off feelings and thoughts. Long live art!

Anne Lise Kjaer
November 11, 2001