 |
| Quinn's Planet, courtesy London Telegraph |
Jonathan Jones Joneses for Artistic Depth
In his 21 January review, Jonathan
Jones, arts and culture critic for London’s The Guardian Newspaper, dropped the gauntlet over popular British
artist Marc
Quinn’s giant baby sculpture, Planet,
and its installation in Singapore’s scenic Gardens by the Sea.
Jones’ criticism is direct rather than
rhetorical. Does art need to be
deep? Inaccessible? Clever?
Challenging? How is it that we
will choose to determine what is or is not considered art in a foundation-less
(stated positively) Postmodern global culture?
I do enjoy The Guardian’s often thoughtful criticism, and appreciate Jones’
perspective in this case, but too often, I also wonder if The Guardian is not merely the UK’s contra-cultural,
anti-establishment perspective – often appearing disagreeable merely to
disagree.
 |
| Quinn and Planet at Singapore installation, courtesy Artnews.com |
Indeed, there appears to be some disagreement with Jones’
perception. Artnews.com confidently judges, “Planet
is one of Marc Quinn’s most important works. The sculpture, which is a
depiction of the artist’s infant son, appears to float above the ground and is
a technical tour-de-force,” (Artnews, below).
I think that in consideration of today’s
cultural norms, Jones is being a bit hypercritical. Consider the fate and present veneration of The Pearl, formerly at the heart of
Manama, Bahrain.
Just a little over a year ago, The Pearl was considered a monumental
symbol of the heart and culture of Bahrain.
The sculpture consisted of a round concrete-looking ball (the pearl)
mounted on a tipi of vertical plinths purportedly representing the sails of
trading ships or Arab dhows, though
in a style some might refer to as Stalin-esque – heavy, large and completely
lacking in grace or refinement. In other
words, as much as I love the city and some of its cultural and artistic
institutions, The Pearl was just plain
ugly. The sculpture lacked beauty, inspiration, deeper meaning or easy association
with any idealism whatsoever. How much
better if the city had sprung for a monumental 30-foot version of the nearby Pearl Diver instead?
 |
| The Pearl Monument and Protest Graffiti |
On the other hand, I was dismayed to hear that The Pearl had been dismantled by the Sheik after the circle in
which it was contained had served as the focus of pro-democratic, anti-regime
protests and their violent suppression. To
me, the monument was destroyed the very moment it attained cultural status,
artistic merit and personal meaning – a travesty against art for which the
future will be heavily aghast.
Jones’ criticism of Quinn is less harsh than
mine of The Pearl, “Quinn has fused the
conceptual methods of contemporary British art with generous injections of
political correctness and heroic sentiment to create some of the shallowest art
of our time.” Jones at least finds Quinn’s work to be “heroic.”
Jones continues, “Babies! Paternal love! How can you fault it? … Easy. No
problem faulting this. Good feeling is not the same thing as good art. I am
delighted that Quinn is soppy about his son, but see no reason why he should
share this on such a colossal scale. Art that flaunts its content in an
immediately readable way risks vacuity. Shouldn't there be some ambiguity, even
profundity, in art?”
I
think that Jones is right and wrong. He
is right, because I have often felt the same.
No, really, I, as a semi-intellegent, rather normal human being seem to
feel a need to find art compelling. A
compelling reason to believe in, recognize or find The Pearl compelling, intriguing or even enlightening was my unmet
need in my search for its artistry and appropriateness. Even now, its appeal rests in its location
and in the history it represents rather than in its original innate structure,
symbolism, execution or material.
Quinn does justify Planet for its technical skill and its symbolism. Artnews.com
interviewed him, “To me, Planet is a
paradox – hugely heavy, yet the bronze appears weightless; overwhelmingly big,
yet also an image of vulnerability. It is both a reflection of ourselves and
the earth upon which we live.”
Possibly, but in this, I would tend to agree with Jones – the image is a
bit banal, a bit overdone, and too literally interpretative of the symbolic
forms of Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptations of A. C. Clarke’s 2001 and 2010 series. Does Quinn
progress Kubrick’s vision? No, at least
not by much.
On the
other hand, for those of us amateur historians, Quinn’s sculpture does hit three
significant notes of Singaporean culture and identity – the codification into
law of common Western bourgeois culture – the same cultural norms Jones find mundane,
banal and boring. Second, Singapore’s
relative vulnerability as a city-state surrounded by much larger, more powerful
and growing nations, the protection of the bay-area serves as a sort of
cultural and political womb. And finally,
Singapore’s promise to grow beyond itself as an important center of world
culture and trade in the future. At the
least, Quinn’s sculpture is seemingly more site-appropriate than was The Pearl.
Regarding technical merit – I do lean more towards Quinn’s side of the
discussion. Planet does indeed look like a giant floating balloon or even a
child floating in the womb (a very large child). The fact that this sculpture is cast bronze
does in fact seem a “tour-de-force.” Jones’ reasoning for belittling this
aspect of the work is that one does not see “lightness,” “floating” or
“technical merit” past the obtuse, sophomoric imagery of a cute, floating baby.
“All
we see when we look at Quinn's baby is "iconic" content. He effaces
the art in art, in a way that makes his simple images accessible to busy
people. … He makes art you can enjoy from your car. Indeed, he makes art you do
not need to see. His icons are so
reductive, they just stimulate chatter instead of sustained looking. He is an artist for the information age,
because his art is pure information. The trouble is, it's the interference,
white noise and static that makes art interesting. Quinn has clinically
cleansed all that poetic mess. He is lethally efficient in his pursuit of the
banal,” (Jones).
 |
| Johnson, Forever Marilyn, unattributed |
 |
| Young Tourist Tintillations |
A
second piece of art brought to mind by Jones’ criticism of Planet is Seward Johnson’s Forever Marilyn, recently displayed in
downtown Chicago. I loved the public
aspect of the piece – and the entertainment of watching hundreds of tourist
pedestrians patiently wait outside each others’ photoframe for their turn to be
photographed looking up Marilyn Monroe’s giant skirt.
“Is this really art? Or is this just
spectacle?” I often wondered.
Interestingly, like my own initial criticism of Planet, Marilyn is also
merely the appropriation and repetition of an image first perfected and made famous
in film. In writing this, I also recall
similar criticism of TV Land’s
sponsored bronze of Gwendolyn Gillen’s Mary Tyler Moore lifting her hat on
Minneapolis’ Nicollet Avenue, referencing the famous opening credits of the
popular television program, “Who can turn
the world on with her smile?”
In the
end, I sympathize with Jones’ regrets that Western culture has become
increasingly “banal”, but I puzzle
over Jones’ reaction in that like many of his fellow commentators at The Guardian, he criticizes on the one
hand while proving an overall champion of the same watered-down,
non-controversial, non-culture specific, non-confrontational Postmodern values
he decries in Quinn’s art. Does Quinn’s art challenge? No, not really. Does
Quinn’s art educate? No, not
really. Does Quinn’s art inspire?
No, not really. But isn’t that exactly why Quinn’s art has
proven so adaptable, so approachable and so popular? Probably.
Turning the tables, Quinn might inquire of Jones as to the values,
audience and intellectual ideals after which Jones pines. Is Jones in fact pining for a past, vanished
history of Classicism,
Euro-intellectualism and their most recent manifestation in classic Modernism? Is Jones’ desire for art that is
soul-searching, ironic, or addressing ideals and aspirations even possible in
today’s world of litigation, liability, commercialization and the McCafé.
 |
| Gwendolyn Gillen, Mary Tyler Moore, unattributed |
For
this, I do not have an answer, just a sympathetic co-commiseration. At a certain point, the important
consideration is a grateful appreciation that the general public and its
private sponsors continue to find meaning and relevance in art – regardless of
depth, tone or subjective critical merit.
No comments:
Post a Comment