Some more thoughts

Back to what has become the main topic of this blog: I want to think about Conceptual Art.  As I understand it, the Art is in thinking up the concept.  But there seems to be some disagreement about whether or not the Artist has to do anything other than formulate the concept in his or her own head.  So by one definition, if the artist formulates a concept s/he has created a work of Art.  Or, in other words, "it's Art because I say it is".

I have relatively little experience of Conceptual Art, I freely admit.  But I have looked at a few different pieces.  One that springs to mind was the runners tearing through the Tate Gallery last summer when we went to see the "Art of the East" exhibition.  It was a bit hair-raising - you didn't want to get in the way of the athlete in case you were knocked down.  I freely admit that I don't understand why this was Art.

Another that I recall was a Video Installation in the Liverpool Tate when we went to see the Klimt exhibition last year.  It was a series of shots of urban settings with the camera swinging through 180 degrees in both the vertical and horizontal planes.  It made you feel nauseous simply by the camera's movement.  Again, I don't understand why this was Art.

In fact all the "Video Installations" I've seen have looked rather like amateurish home videos.  I often wonder why the Artists who make Video Installations didn't do a Film Studies degree and at least learn to use the equipment proficiently.

Now a confession: when I was a student (Brighton 1967-1971) I made three pieces which you might call Conceptual Art.  The first was a triptych altarpiece which opened to show three scenes which seemed to me, at the time, to be desperately important.  If I remember right, one of the side pieces was a portrait of Bob Dylan, and the centrepiece was a painting of St George slaying the dragon.  Don't ask me why - I can't remember.  Then there was the metal grille from a heater which I partially melted with an oxy-acetylene torch to demonstrate (if I remember  properly) the precariousness of our civilisation's dependence on Technology.  And finally the mock French-Cafe table with its centre cut out and a card index (like half a Rolodex) of designs for restaurant fronts inserted in the hole.  I spent months on these over a two year period.  They were all rubbish - by any standards, if we may still use a term like "standards" in this field.  But I wonder what a Saatchi would have made of them had they been in the right place at the right time?  Would I now be rich?
 
But, take the mickey out of them as I have, I think that there was more artistry in any of these three pieces than in a Damien Hirst "spin painting" actually made by one of his technicians, or a Tracey Emin drawing of her own crutch.  And honestly, there's no sour grapes in that statement.  For each of those three pieces I learned, pracised, and utilised new skills, adapting them to the needs of the work as it progressed.  And those pieces were not done for money, obviously, as Hirst's spin "paintings" were (by his own account).

 

In the end the piece I made as a student which I most value is a little coil pot about eight inches high.  I spent an age making this look as much like a thrown pot as I could (this also smacks of "Concept" Art, I'm afraid).  But now, 40 years on - to hi-jack a school song and a Play title - I like it just for the unassuming craftsmanship of its making.  Here it is: