I coined the word 'Metrocentricity' many years ago, to describe the manner in which so much of the arts (and indeed all else) seems to be centred on the large conurbations, and in the particular case of Britain, London. At the time I was writing reviews and features for a now-defunct magazine, Art Line', which championed the visual arts in all parts of Britain.

I was dismayed at that time to see how little attention was given to exhibitions staged outside the nation's capital, and how in order for an artist to get on it was necessary for her or him to move towards London. Thankfully that extreme situation has passed and there are now lively and thriving arts scenes in many provincial cities and towns. Indeed it can be said with some justification that some such scenes not only rival London but surpass it. There is a new sense of confidence which can only be seen as healthy.

I was therefore encouraged and pleased some time ago to come across the following quotations, which accord with my thinking:

'However, it has become increasingly clear over the last few decades that the centralised formalism of exclusive, linear, metropolitan Modernism and its supports are exhausted and that most interesting artists working today are creating new possibilities around a wider awareness and relationship with place and context.'

and:

'This new modernity is lateral rather than linear, in inclusive rather than exclusive, and consequently empowering rather than disempowering of locality. It is represented by a momentum in art centred on ideas of humanity and human-ness, argues against the sort of consumerism that one-dimensionalises human experience, and argues for an understanding of our humanity, our human-ness, as multi-dimensional.'

- from, Declan McGonagle, 'A New Modernity', in 'Artes Mundi: Wales International Visual Arts Prize', edited by Tessa Jackson, © Artes Mundi/Seren, Wales 2004

The following text appears on the Home page of http://www.artoteque.com/. Other texts in a similar vein appear on other pages of this large and ambitious site.

The question is, how well does this text actually communicate? The site is intended to offer new ways of encountering contemporary art, a worthwhile intention.

But there is a problem if anyone who is not a member of the inner circle of the metropolitan 'cognoscenti' (whether elected by the acclaim of their peers, or otherwise self-appointed) stumbles across the site. Is it a requirement that anyone wishing to understand what it is that contemporary artists are doing should have a degree in, or deep knowledge of, linguistic gymnastics, art-babble or comparative philology and semiotics?

There is, of course, nothing wrong in an artist or critic having a deep knowledge of philosophy, or any other esoteric and arcane branch of human knowledge. Neither is there anything wrong in an artist or critic seeking innovative ways to share their knowledge in these fields with others. That is what artists and critics should always do.

The problem is, and it has been going on for many years, is that the language used by many artists and critics is so complex, riddled with obscure words (or even invented words) and poorly explained concepts, that it actually succeeds in putting people off art, rather than involving them in a deeper understanding of it.

Perhaps this is what such artists and critics want - to keep the inner circle tight so that mutual self-congratulation is so much easier to maintain.

In the end, it only matters if such failures to communicate cause harm to society in general. Thankfully, this does not seem to be the case so far. What is more worrying is that many people encountering such art gobbledygook are put off attempting to find out more, even if they want to. Now that is a sad reflection in a time of what is supposed to be better global communication.

I came across an article about the Portuguese artist, Pedro Cabrita Reis, in the November 2005 edition of 'Modern Painters', written by Karen Wright, the then editor of the magazine. I was struck by the particular relevance of the following quote, which seems to me to address very succinctly one of the central dilemmas of the contemporary visual arts - whether or nor a work of art can be understood, or should be made to be understood.

'Art is not about ideas. Ideas are good for writers. We cannot work with ideas. An artwork is not understood... an artwork is intuited, it is never understood, nor known. That keeps it strong throughout history. It will not endure if it is made to be understood. To be understood you will be just a narrative piece of shit... No, no, no - what it is that makes a viewer silent is the question we should be asking. We know we have to listen to ourselves in silence because what we are looking at reflects this silence. I don't know where it affects the viewer, maybe not in the mind, or in the heart, maybe not in the sex. Maybe in the stomach. But the work pushes you to this silence and makes it part of you when you look at it. Something must be real about it. But where can we find this image? Where can we find this energy? So, as artists, we have to ask ourselves whether we will be able to do this, or whether we are just producers of artefacts. I really don't know.'

Reis addresses the primal need for someone looking at a work of art to meld his or her intuitive understanding with that of the artist, and equally the responsibility of the artist to invest the work with such feeling, emotion or power that will resonate across space and time. We cannot fully understand the motives or beliefs of a long dead artist (or for that matter a living artist) when we encounter a painting, or a sculpture, or other art form, for the first time. But, if the work has been invested with some power by the artist, it will communicate, just as an old building can, when entered for the first time, cause a deep sense of presence.

It seems to me that I have been encountering the division, at at worst the battle, between abstraction and representation ever since my time at Leeds College of Art (1965-68). The dichotomy, if that is what it is, seems to be insoluble, because much of the writing and discussion on the subject has been, quite understandably, based on highly subjective judgements. The following quotation might however go some way to resolving the dichotomy, and certainly bears consideration. It comes from a challenging and thoroughly well worth reading book by Julian Spalding, 'The Eclipse of Art - tackling the crisis in Art today', Prestel Verlag, Munich, Berlin, London, New York, 2003 (ISBN 3-7913-2881-6).

'...anyone who has ever looked at a work of art with even an ounce of appreciation knows that it is just as impossible to create a represetational image that has no formal (or abstract) properties, as it is to create an abstract image that has no associational (or representational) properties. Since all works of art are artifices, the division of art into two opposing camps, with representation on one side, and abstraction on the other, is merely arbitrary.'

There is much more in this book that bears reading and pondering - it is a breath of fresh air through the polluted air of the critical world.

I came across a television programme today, purely by chance and, as so often in such cases, was riveted by what I saw. The programme was called 'Holding the Key' and explored the curious nature of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem which is shared by a number of ancient Christian communities - Copts, Syrian Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, Roman Orthodox among them. While there is a high degree of friendly cooperation between these groups, with three services happening simultaneously in different parts of the church, there are also, quite understandably but regretably, disagreements and disputes of various kinds.

What struck me particularly was the segment that dealt with the work of the Key Keeper who unlocks the doors of the church each morning at 4am, and locks it again late at night. The programme showed an elaborate ceremony which includes a ladder being passed through a hatchway  in the door from inside to outside so that the Key Keeper can reach the ancient lock high up on the outside of the door. It is striking that, in these times of conflict between religions, the hereditary position of Key Keeper has been held by the eldest male member of the same Muslim family for over eight centuries, passing from father to son down the generations.

The television channel that transmitted the programme was Al Jazeera. That is a fact worth remembering when the rhetoric is stirred up against one religion or another. Mutual tolerance and interest in each other's history and practices has to be the way forward, not military opposition, and certainly not claims of superiority and primacy. (See: www.aljazeera.net/english for further interest)

Seen in the garden today, a cold day but bright with some sunshine:

Wood Pigeon, House Sparrow, Dunnock, Wren, Robin, Chaffinch, Blue Tit, Coal Tit, Long-Tailed Tit, Great Tit, Blackbird, Nuthatch, Song Thrush.

Providing a variety of foods regularly seems to work - there are many regular visitors.

Saturday 3rd February: The afternoon opening of the new exhibition at Oriel Davies, the increasingly successful contemporary art gallery in Newtown, Powys, was very good. It is encouraging to see how many people attend such events in a first class gallery (see http://www.orieldavies.org/) in what is still a small and, dare I say, very provincial Welsh town of about 12,000 inhabitants. But, despite the impression that this description of the town might give the support for the gallery continues to grow. The area from which visitors come also increases, as the well-earned reputation of the gallery spreads. The renovation and extension project completed just over a year ago has provided a splendid location for a wide range of exhibitions, from an exhibition of the best in British art from the early 20th century, to an exhibition curated by a group of local students, to a wonderful exhibition ('Folk Art and Fairy Tales') which contained some brilliantly anarchic works based on fairies, amongst other things. The visitor figures, based on the former gallery, have trebled since the renovations were completed - remarkable in any situation, but in a small Welsh town nothing short of amazing. In addition, the book and gift shop prospers, and the cafe, run by the excellent Alice, is an oasis of eating and drinking pleasure where empty seats and tables are hard to find.

The new exhibition is of paintings by two artists who work in what can generally be called the 'photorealist' style, but with very different results.

John Salt was born in 1937 and now who lives in Shropshire, across the border from Newtown. He has also lived and worked in America, an experience that provides much of his inspiration and subject matter, and he has paintings in many major collections across the world. His extraordinary technique, in which he incorporates hand-cut and incredibly delicate stencil work with painstaking and astonishingly accurate painting, depicts decaying cars in deserted streets and trailer parks. The clarity of the paintings conveys a haunting, at times almost sinister, effect, in which the presence of human beings is merely implied. There are echoes of films remembered, the littered and destroyed landscapes of the industrial fringes of nameless towns that are always in the distance, and the sadnesses of the trailer parks. In the most recent works it is interesting to note that the trees, in other works part of the general background, are now taking their place in the foreground. This suggests that nature, nearly always present in Salt's work, is now taking over, reclaiming the land in which cars and trailers are, as the always have been, alien.

The other artist, showing in the second gallery space, is Roland Hicks, born in 1967. This young and well regarded artist works from digital photographs of familar and mundane objects, albeit taken in extreme close-up and from unusual angles. The focus of his exhibition is a new series of paintings, both small and large, of chewing-gum and bubble-gum that has been dropped on hard surfaces and has then adhered to the soles of shoes that, in lifting away from the surface create stretched forms of the discarded gum. What can, in reality be a tiresome interuption to a walk in town is transmuted through Hicks's extraordinarily skilful technique into the creation of some alternative world, reminiscent of science-fiction, geode crystals and even the organic nightmares of Giger's designs for the 'Alien' film series. The larger paintings approach the epic in their effect, while the smaller paintings offer a concentrated glimpse of a strange other world, and in the necessary compression of the painter's vision, achieve an even more powerful effect.

It is refereshing to see an exhibition devoted to painting - that art form that, despite the best efforts of critics and doom-sayers, is not dead, and refuses to die. The power of paint remains, shifts focus, changes form but continues to possess the subtle energies and power to cause seismic disturbance in the perception of those who care to see what is going on.

RN

 Posted @ 18:11:23 on 04 February 2007  back to top