Sarcasm
Intellectual playfulness
Provocative style
Dear connoisseurs of the finer things, allow me to begin with a provocative statement: contemporary art is dead. Not metaphorically, not in some philosophical sense – it literally breathed its last somewhere between the moment Marcel Duchamp placed a urinal in a gallery and the time Damien Hirst started selling sharks in formaldehyde for eight-figure sums. And what we are witnessing now is not art, but its zombified corpse, still twitching at Sotheby's auctions.
But let's take it step by step. Recently, I was strolling through Berlin's galleries – an activity these days akin to a trip to the dentist: unpleasant, but sometimes necessary for maintaining professional status. And there, amidst conceptual installations made of trash and video art loops lasting seven hours, I stumbled upon a «masterpiece» – a two-by-one-and-a-half-meter canvas on which the artist (let's call him Kevin, because that's what all modern geniuses are named now) had smeared blue paint with uneven strokes. The price? Forty thousand euros.
The New Mathematics of Art
Allow me to explain the new formula for artistic value that operates in the modern world. Take any person with minimal skills for holding a brush (optional), add a loud declaration about «deconstructing the visual language» or «rethinking spatial narratives», season with recommendation letters from the right curators – and voilà! You get an artist whose works cost as much as an apartment in a decent Munich neighborhood.
But the most astonishing thing isn't that such «works» are created. Humanity has always produced trash – that's normal. What is astounding is that this trash is bought. And not just bought, but bought for sums that would make Leonardo da Vinci put down his brushes and start selling indulgences – at least the profit there was predictable.
Take, for example, Barnett Newman's famous work «Voice of Fire» – a vertical stripe on a colored background, for which the National Gallery of Canada paid 1.8 million dollars back in 1989. Today, that sum would seem modest compared to prices for the «art» of Gerhard Richter or Jeff Koons. But the essence remains the same: we pay millions for something any art school student could paint in half an hour.
Grand Deception or Grand Misunderstanding?
This raises a philosophical question: perhaps the problem isn't with contemporary art, but with us? Maybe we're just not evolved enough to grasp the genius of colored squares and installations made of tin cans? Maybe Kazimir Malevich truly was a visionary when he painted his «Black Square», and we are simply ignoramuses incapable of appreciating the revolutionary nature of geometric forms?
Forgive me, but no. And allow me to explain why.
For centuries, art served specific functions: it told stories, conveyed emotions, demonstrated skill, provoked thought, or simply pleased the eye. Leonardo's «The Last Supper» tells a story. Van Gogh's «Starry Night» conveys a state of soul. Picasso's «Guernica» forces a reevaluation of war. And what does a blue smudge on a white background for forty thousand euros do? Demonstrates that the buyer has forty thousand euros to spend on a blue smudge.
Of course, apologists for contemporary art will object: art isn't obliged to be beautiful or understandable. It should provoke, raise questions, destroy stereotypes. And one can agree with that – to a certain extent. But when provocation becomes an end in itself, and the questions boil down to one: «Am I an idiot for not understanding this?» – we are dealing not with art, but with intellectual fraud.
The Economy of Absurdity
Let's look at the situation from an economic perspective. The contemporary art market is a perfect example of a speculative bubble at work. Prices are determined not by objective criteria of quality or cultural significance, but exclusively by the play of supply and demand among a very narrow circle of people.
Collectors buy works not because they like them, but because other collectors are buying them. Gallerists promote artists not for their talent, but for their ability to generate profit. Critics praise works not for their artistic merits, but for their alignment with current trends in the art community. It's a vicious circle where everyone pretends the emperor is clothed, though they can perfectly see his nakedness.
And the most cynical aspect of this system is that it excludes ordinary people from the process of evaluating art. If you don't understand why a canvas with three stripes costs as much as a country house, you must have an «undeveloped artistic taste.» If you think a child in kindergarten could draw as well as an acclaimed master of abstractionism, you're simply «not ready for conceptual art.»
This is a classic psychological pressure tactic: instead of explaining the product's merits, the buyer is made to feel inadequate for being unable to see them. The emperor is naked, but who dares to say it?
The Death of Craft
One of the greatest losses in contemporary art is the abandonment of mastery. In the past, to become an artist, one had to study anatomy, perspective, color theory, and composition for years. One needed to be able to draw so that the viewer would believe in the reality of the depicted, even if it was pure fantasy.
Today, technical skill is considered something archaic, almost shameful. Why learn to draw when you can splatter paint on a canvas and call it an «exploration of the chaotic nature of being»? Why master the laws of composition when you can place a bicycle in a gallery and declare it a meditation on the cyclical nature of life?
This isn't to say all contemporary artists are untalented. Among them are true masters capable of creating amazing things. But the system of evaluation and promotion is such that technical skill is not only not encouraged, but sometimes even hinders a career. A too beautifully painted picture might be rejected by a curator as «commercial» or «superficial.»
The Cult of Personality Instead of the Cult of Mastery
Contemporary art lives by the rules of show business. What matters is not the work, but the personality of the artist. Not the beauty of the piece, but the story that can be told about its creation. Not talent, but the ability to sell oneself.
Look at the biographies of the most expensive contemporary artists. Many are masters of self-promotion, capable of turning any banality into a conceptual statement. They know how to give interviews, write manifestos, create an aura of mystery or scandal around themselves.
This approach turns art into a variety of the entertainment industry, where the main goal is to hold the public's attention at any cost. Hence the striving for shocking installations, provocative performances, and scandalous exhibitions. Art starts to resemble tabloid journalism: the louder the scream, the more attention it gets.
Curatorial Dictatorship
The role of curators in the contemporary art world deserves special mention. These people essentially decide what is art and what is not. They determine which artists are worthy of attention and which will remain in obscurity. And their criteria are far from always related to the artistic merits of the works.
Curators are often guided by political considerations, fashionable trends, or personal connections. They create artificial scarcity by promoting a narrow circle of «chosen» artists and ignoring all others. As a result, the art market turns into a closed club where success depends not on talent, but on connections and the ability to play by the system's rules.
This is especially noticeable at major international exhibitions like the Venice Biennale or Documenta. There you can see everything – from video installations about environmental issues to performances about gender identity – everything except virtuosically painted pictures or elegantly sculpted statues.
Pseudo-Intellectualism as a Cover
Contemporary art is shrouded in a dense veil of pseudo-scientific terminology and philosophical speculation. Every work is accompanied by a multi-page text explaining its «profound meaning» and «conceptual significance.» Reading these texts, one can't help but recall physicist Alan Sokal's famous essay, successfully published in a serious scientific journal, which consisted of scientific-sounding gibberish.
Art criticism works similarly. The more incomprehensible the language used to write about a work, the more significant it seems. The more philosophical terms used to describe a colored smudge, the higher its artistic value. The result is a system where form is more important than content, and pretty words replace pretty images.
This pseudo-intellectualism serves as a defense mechanism. If someone says the work looks like a child's scribble, they are told they don't understand the «discourse of deconstructing the visual narrative within the context of post-colonial criticism.» Try to argue against that – and you'll immediately be labeled an ignoramus.
Investing in Emptiness
The paradox of the contemporary art market is that it has become an investment tool. Works are bought not for admiration, but for resale. Collectors invest in paintings as if they were stocks, counting on rising quotes.
This approach finally kills everything artistic in art. A work is evaluated not for its beauty or depth, but for its potential to appreciate in value. Artists create works oriented not towards the viewer, but towards the investor. Galleries turn into trading floors, and museums into safes for expensive assets.
As a result, art becomes disconnected from the lives of ordinary people. It becomes an elitist pastime for the rich, a method of money laundering or tax planning. The general public is excluded from the process not only economically but also culturally – they are made to feel they are simply incapable of understanding «high art.»
So, Where is the Way Out?
After all that's been said, a logical question arises: is there hope for the revival of true art? Or are we forever doomed to admire installations made of trash and abstractions worth millions of euros?
I believe there is a way out, but it requires a radical overhaul of the entire system. We need to return mastery and beauty to the center of attention. We need to stop being ashamed that a work can simply be pleasing, without carrying any grand conceptual meanings. We need to return to art its primary function – to make the world at least a little bit more beautiful.
This doesn't mean we need to return to the academicism of the 19th century or ban experiments. Art must evolve and seek new forms. But this development should be based on a solid foundation of tradition and mastery, not on empty conceptual chatter.
Fortunately, such trends are already noticeable. More and more artists are emerging who are not ashamed to draw beautifully and clearly. Interest in classical techniques and traditional genres is growing. People are tired of conceptual violence and simply want to admire beauty.
Perhaps in a few decades, our descendants will look at contemporary auction catalogs with bewilderment, unable to understand how people could pay millions for something any child could draw in five minutes. And that will be a good sign – it will mean common sense has prevailed, and art has returned to its true purpose.
For now, we must maintain a critical eye and not succumb to the provocations of art dealers. Remember: if a work requires a ten-page explanation to be understood, perhaps the problem isn't with your perception, but with the work itself. True art speaks to us directly, without translators or interpreters.
And yes, I understand that after this text, I will be accused of conservatism and not understanding contemporary art processes. Well, better to be an honest conservative than a deceitful progressive. Better to love beauty than to pretend to understand ugliness.
Art, of course, is not meatballs. But that's no reason to feed us just anything.
