The quarrels that have plagued the world of art over the last decade or so, animated by philosophers, critics, art dealers, the organizers of exhibitions and other assessors of today’s cultural scene, compels me to examine the place that I have been allocated as an artist in this confused and turbulent debate.
Art is determined as a result of both the customs and conventions in force at the moment of its creation. This has no doubt always been the case. Ever since the 18th century all philosophical discussions in relation to the Arts issued from Kant’s theory of aesthetics but in the 20th century it was swept aside with the emergence of postmodernism and new paradigms of appreciation. The artist was now free to experiment diverse forms of artistic expression that were no longer restricted uniquely to the fine arts. The detractors in this debate – those who continue to defend a Kantian approach to art – accuse the new administrators of the art world who benefit from the complaisance of critics, galleries in vogue and public institutions; to be an institutional elite that decrees “from on high” the quality or the mediocrity of an oeuvre and to act as a sanction to any-old-thing in a system where the cultural sphere is ruled by market values. On the other hand the partisans of an art hitherto relieved from the constraints of aesthetics have no scruples in accusing their antagonists of defending obsolete theories which were responsible for a pernicious and sacrosanct form of art. This new approach encourages a secular art, firmly allied to economical and political transformations; to the development of new technologies and to that of the media. In other words an art freed of all complexes, definitively liberated from the incumbent tradition of the metaphysics of beauty.
It has thus become necessary to establish new parameters of evaluation. This is where the difficulty lies. Numerous theories succeeded one another but none of them achieved a consensus. Transgression being in vogue, all systems of evaluation are put to the test by the artists themselves who continuously reinvent the conditions of their newfound liberty.
So much for the context. As an artist who works on canvas in a more or less traditional way, it is not surprising that I should be automatically catalogued a conventional painter, defending conservative values and opposed to any new interpretation of art. When confronted with the remonstrations of my fellow "conventional painters" it is clear to me that I am not in my place. By clinging to the Kantian theory that art is to do with the judgement of taste they impose codes of subjective acceptability to all works of art, restricting creativity to conform to conventions laid down two hundred years ago; their sermons in defence of aesthetics making beauty little more than an ingredient in a recipe that has remained unchanged since the 18th century.
It is unfortunate that the antagonists in this debate, lacking the arguments that might lead to a consensus, barricade themselves behind their respective convictions and allow their quarrel to degenerate into contempt and an exchange of insults. I might not be in the carriage with the artists elected by the assessors of the art of the moment, but that does not mean that I have been left behind on the platform. Art history has a long record of artists reacting against the dominant artistic manifestations of their time: the Nouveaux Fauves, the Trans-Avant-Gardes, the Nouvelle Figuration to name but a few who reacted by revisiting past values and bringing them onto a contemporary stage.
The rupture of today’s art with the aesthetic tradition will have an undeniable influence on the future evolution of art history, but this said it remains to be seen whether this influence is irreversible. An art that has taken upon itself to reinvent its own criteria for evaluation and who’s only project is that induced by the free market, is it not destined to be absorbed to such an extent by cultural frivolities, fashion and the many aspects of communication that there will remain only an art replaced by its ersatz? The substitution of art by Culture and Communication announces the death of art but a death by substitution as it no longer relates to art itself but to its simulacra.
Many aspects of today’s art arouse my curiosity and I follow with interest the ever growing spheres invested by contemporary artists but I often find it difficult to reconcile the products of their interventions with my personal perception of art. This does not arise from the lack of aesthetics but rather from a deviation from what I believe to be the very essence of art: an expression of the creation of the universe inherent in the recurring cycle of love, life and death in a celebration of universal consciousness.
Post colonial imperialism continues to affirm its hegemony over the international stage, imposing its models, tendencies and style, greedily helping itself to the riches of the third world – their cultures included – then selling them back transformed and revised according to the parameters of a neo-colonialist consortium. The outcome of this is that all artists who wish to be accepted by the contemporary art scene are obliged to conform to the ideology of the West where arrogance, a lack of commitment and subservience to the art market proliferates.
It is with this in mind that I anticipate, not so much a return to old values, but rather a re-initialisation of art with the universal principles of creation that are not restricted exclusively to occidental ideals.
Rather than looking towards Wall Street, would it not be healthier to turn towards certain cultures of the third world where art still enacts its primary role as a means of communication between Man and his gods: between Man and nature? It is with a humble and reverential approach towards the immensity of the universe and the miracle of life that the artist connects to the very essence of art. It is sad to note that an attitude such as this, the implication that art has a fundamental role to play in Man’s relation to the universe, is proclaimed obsolete, unworthy of consideration or at best stigmatised as primitive or naïve. I do not pretend that this is the only way to approach the arts. I defend only its legitimacy to be part of the artistic scene of today.
Ashley 2007
(For further reading on this subject I recommend Marc Jimenez's book “La Querelle de l’Art Contemporain,” published by Gallimard).
