Jonesing for Depth

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. 

National Museum Bahrain

Winged Victory of the Gulf (c) Agassiz

Outdoor Sculpture Garden

National Museum of Bahrain

Manama, Bahrain

 

    The Gulf States exhibit a brilliant almost gardenlike culture (oasis would be too predictable) notable for the graceful lines and the natural hues that seem to pervade all aspects of life from the music to the clothing to the buildings to the artwork.  The seas of unending sand, giant dunes and dust-storms unify their curves and dominate the landscape as the wind from the Arabian Desert merges the slowly creeping dunes and the lazy, if persistent, repetitive action of the slow Gulf waves. 

    The Outdoor Sculpture Garden at the National Museum of Bahrain in Manama, most effectively demonstrates this principle. 

    The second quiet strength of this art collection is that it is entirely indigenous -- these are not the works of Matisse and Rembrandt purchased at foreign auctions with unlimited oil revenues, but rather the quiet, assertive voice of an emerging art culture.

The Python (c) Agassiz

    I need to confess that I have two pieces that are by far my favourites which I have nicknamed Victory of the Gulf and the Python which to me represents the giant serpent Python that was once thought to encircle the globe of the ancient Greeks -- the snake that Hercules amazed the world by lifting so many negligible feet off the ground.  The resemblence of this Python to an oil pipeline is probably not a coincidence to be dismissed.