Laughing at Culture
- Hell is other peopl
As often happens when I leave the country for a few days, momentous things have happened. Twelve annoying people have moved in to a house together, with the sole aim of providing entertainment. The long running situation comedy programme "Friends" aired its final episode in the United Kingdom. This ended with the six main characters choosing to remain friends rather than travel in to space with the alien Nazis, and solve crimes, in what would doubtless have been a fabulous spin-off series. A tent burned down in a warehouse in London, along with around a hundred other works of art. And as a result, a slightly ridiculous self-parody has parodied herself once again. You know who I mean. Tracey Emin.
Ah, Tracey. Tracey, Tracey, Tracey.
She's got a point. But let's start by defining Art. I can't define art for you, any more than you can define art for me. But for the purposes of argument, let's say that Art is "the products of human creativity", as that seems pretty wide-ranging. So we can be quite comfortable that the works destroyed fall in to the category of Art. Let's not discuss whether modern Art is 'good Art' or 'bad Art'. I like you, and want to stay friends.
Happy? Good. Now it gets more interesting. Let's continue by considering the validation of Art. I can pick my nose, leave the residue on a tissue, and call it Art. When I was two years old, I probably did. Nobody paid �40,000 for it. No matter how many times I asked. The value of Art is defined by the beholder and not the creator. Further, the financial value of commercial Art is based on the price that someone will pay for it. There's clear overlap between Art which is popular and Art which is an investment, but just because one person is willing to buy a piece of Art does not mean that it automatically becomes popular.
"The majority of the British public have no regard or no respect to what me and my peers do, to the point that they laugh at a disaster like a fire."
I can't argue with that. In terms of the damage and loss involved, this is actually pretty awful. Aside from the loss of Emin's work, there are reports that the world has also lost works by Chris Ofili, Gavin Turk, Sarah Lucas.
For me, personally, there are two names that stand out from the list. Rachel Whiteread is one. She's pretty damned brilliant. I'll be writing more about her later in the week. The other piece feared lost is Jake and Dinos Chapman's Hell, which we saw when we were in London in March. It's a frankly incredible piece - a sort of giant model railway model telling of deformity, torture, war and sex. An incredible piece, and a dreadful, dreadful loss.
And Tracey Emin's tent. The public, that nebulous entity that reads the Daily Mirror, really doesn't like Tracey Emin. And she does nothing to redeem herself, by coming across as arrogant and defensive in equal measure. She gained a notoriety with her "My Bed" that's very hard to dispel, despite the fact that the piece is incredibly personal, and definitely worth seeing. It's also quite a difficult piece, and one that really doesn't stand on its own. It's one of those pieces of Art where to appreciate it fully you need to know something of the background to its creation. It's the sort of Art that needs its creator to continue to defend it and define it. And critically, it's the sort of Art that you need to be in the presence of to have any real understanding of it. After "My Bed", she was pretty much pigeonholed by the media as a gobby bullshitter, full of her self importance.
"We really don't need to laugh at the culture in our own country."
She's right, but she's not the right person to say it. She's the 'gobby bulshitter who sold her bed and called it Art'. By saying that we don't need to laugh at culture she just cements her image in the public mind. It's the use of the word 'culture', you see. By using it in this context, she is (at least in the mind of the man on the Clapham Omnibus) claiming that her work is cultural and has intrinsic merit. But she's also implying that it's got more 'value' than some of the other elements of our culture. There is an implicit suggestion that modern Art is 'Good Culture' as opposed to, say, Coronation Street. But the fact is that the impact on the cultural make-up of British Society is far less influenced by a fire in an Art Warehouse than it would be by the destruction of sets at Granada's studios.
Big Brother. Friends. BritArt. Coronation Street. All sides of British Culture. All fleeting and temporary. All to be treasured, if you want. To be valued, if you want. To be laughed at, if you want.
Whatever you want.
1 June, 2004
