There is a bloody great crack in the floor of the Tate Modern and it is a piece of art. Discuss.
Well is it art? Before I read the leaflet the gallery provided I thought I would jot down my own thoughts and compare them both at the end. Just a private experiment to see whether or not I ‘get it’.
I used to think that while portraits and landscapes were literal representations of what the artist saw (abstracts, surrealism and the like aside), modern art concealed some sort of code that needed to be broken. I realised after some time that I was probably wrong on both counts. Portraits often contained more about the subject - or the artist’s view of them - than a photograph ever could. Then there could be an additional subtext driven by the politics surrounding the individual as well as the artist’s own agenda and/or own emotional wellbeing. I’m not so sure about traditional landscapes, as I am not much of a fan and will walk past them fairly quickly, but I am sure that the same applied here.
So it was actually these ‘literal representations’ that would conceal some hidden message, whereas with Modern Art, a blob of paint may just be a blob of paint. Despite what the artist, critics or pseuds would have you believe, it may be nothing more than an adventure in pigment, unusual medium or self expression. But I relish the controversy, the arguments, the self importance and the arrogance of it all. Far more fun than just finding out that the reason that some obscure noblemen ended up a big nose and buck teeth in his portrait was because he was sleeping with the artist’s wife.
So what about the crack? If the official meaning that is attributed to it is that it is ‘…emphasising the division in society in religion, politics, gender, race, affluence, power etc...’ then that’s all too obvious and would be a shame.
Personally, I saw it as artistic vandalism on an enormous scale – but in a good way. Banksy and Keith Haring were underground heroes of the eighties and nineties before their works of graffiti were adopted by the ‘legitimate’ art world. However the architect behind the crack (like Tracy Emin and Damien Hurst, I cannot regard anyone that sub-contracts their art as an artist) has been commissioned to damage the Turbine Hall floor. So that legitimacy has been automatically handed to them, rather than needing to be earned.
But I am no less impressed. It is a visual feast – juddering across the floor from one end of the hall to the other before it meets with a frosted glass wall and is transformed into a translucent reflection of itself disappearing into another dimension. The work is as much about watching the other viewers and their reactions to what they see. Some people are simply dismissive and take the opportunity to ridicule and deride its existence, spouting tired old platitudes about how it is a pointless waste of money and so on. Others laugh and joke about falling down the gap as they collectively shuffle along in tiny steps as they trace its angular progress. I have started to learn how to draw, and I now regret that I did not use it as the subject for one of my drawing exercises, as one or two student types were obviously doing.
The ‘genuine’ reasons behind its inception are an irrelevance. Like many before and after me, I simply enjoyed it. So on that basis, I won’t bother reading the leaflet and finding out what I should have thought of it.
It’ll only disappoint…
Well is it art? Before I read the leaflet the gallery provided I thought I would jot down my own thoughts and compare them both at the end. Just a private experiment to see whether or not I ‘get it’.
I used to think that while portraits and landscapes were literal representations of what the artist saw (abstracts, surrealism and the like aside), modern art concealed some sort of code that needed to be broken. I realised after some time that I was probably wrong on both counts. Portraits often contained more about the subject - or the artist’s view of them - than a photograph ever could. Then there could be an additional subtext driven by the politics surrounding the individual as well as the artist’s own agenda and/or own emotional wellbeing. I’m not so sure about traditional landscapes, as I am not much of a fan and will walk past them fairly quickly, but I am sure that the same applied here.
So it was actually these ‘literal representations’ that would conceal some hidden message, whereas with Modern Art, a blob of paint may just be a blob of paint. Despite what the artist, critics or pseuds would have you believe, it may be nothing more than an adventure in pigment, unusual medium or self expression. But I relish the controversy, the arguments, the self importance and the arrogance of it all. Far more fun than just finding out that the reason that some obscure noblemen ended up a big nose and buck teeth in his portrait was because he was sleeping with the artist’s wife.
So what about the crack? If the official meaning that is attributed to it is that it is ‘…emphasising the division in society in religion, politics, gender, race, affluence, power etc...’ then that’s all too obvious and would be a shame.
Personally, I saw it as artistic vandalism on an enormous scale – but in a good way. Banksy and Keith Haring were underground heroes of the eighties and nineties before their works of graffiti were adopted by the ‘legitimate’ art world. However the architect behind the crack (like Tracy Emin and Damien Hurst, I cannot regard anyone that sub-contracts their art as an artist) has been commissioned to damage the Turbine Hall floor. So that legitimacy has been automatically handed to them, rather than needing to be earned.
But I am no less impressed. It is a visual feast – juddering across the floor from one end of the hall to the other before it meets with a frosted glass wall and is transformed into a translucent reflection of itself disappearing into another dimension. The work is as much about watching the other viewers and their reactions to what they see. Some people are simply dismissive and take the opportunity to ridicule and deride its existence, spouting tired old platitudes about how it is a pointless waste of money and so on. Others laugh and joke about falling down the gap as they collectively shuffle along in tiny steps as they trace its angular progress. I have started to learn how to draw, and I now regret that I did not use it as the subject for one of my drawing exercises, as one or two student types were obviously doing.
The ‘genuine’ reasons behind its inception are an irrelevance. Like many before and after me, I simply enjoyed it. So on that basis, I won’t bother reading the leaflet and finding out what I should have thought of it.
It’ll only disappoint…
