Have you ever walked into a contemporary art museum and come out feeling like you’ve been duped somehow?
I think most of us relate to this experience to some extent. You go to a museum hoping to be inspired, and leave unimpressed, possibly even irritated. What you saw was weirdly underwhelming, and despite your best effort, you couldn’t find the supposed merit in the exhibited work. You read the wall text and either found it impenetrable, or it simply failed to clearly explain why the work should matter to you. If you’re kind, you go on with your life and accept that you must be missing something. If you are less tolerant, you’re angry at the use of tax money to elevate something that, to you, had no perceivable value. I don’t think either response is unreasonable.
But I’m not trying to throw artists or their institutions under the bus; we thrive on critique after all. As someone who has actively participated as a visual artist for more than twenty years, I’ve built up a certain comfort level with art-speak and learned to appreciate all kinds of inhospitable art, but I still experience what I’ve described above to varying degrees. This issue was never addressed during my time in art school. Group discussions, critiques, and lectures tended to burrow deeper into the esoteric, which is appropriate in that context, but what I found lacking was any discussion of how the art in question can connect with anyone on the outside. Academia seems perfectly content with this sense of insularity, and doesn’t seem to mind repelling the public from contemporary art discourse. But once you leave that bubble, this value system and its language just doesn’t fly.
During my years as a high school art teacher, I frequently found myself defending abstract, minimalist, and conceptual art. I can’t say that my defense was a resounding success, but at the very least I gave these movements some context and equipped my students with the tools to approach them if they chose. What I found was that most skeptics still disliked these art forms, but they could accept that even though some art might appear pointless, the artist usually pursues a deeper purpose that requires deeper reflection. Equally important, it wasn’t that hard to explain that art doesn’t need to dazzle the eye in order to possess value. As long as it seeks to express something honest and genuine in a novel way, then it earns its place.
Why does contemporary art have to be so weird? The legitimate reason is that artists by nature and by training constantly look for evolution. What will the next new thing look like? This requires constant experimentation and risk-taking, an approach which tends to receive more accolades and attention from art institutions, even if these experiments seem to have little in common with traditional art values. The more questionable reason reverberates from an ongoing echo chamber decades in the making, which values and upholds its elite status and language, and wouldn’t want to risk this status quo by speaking coherently to a general audience. Mystique and detachment outweigh accessibility. I ran into this while preparing to open my first solo exhibit. I was sharing the space with another more experienced painter, who made it very clear that my work was not weird enough – or in his words, that it lacked a post-modern edge. He wasn’t entirely wrong, I still had a lot to figure out to find my footing, but the message was clear. Pushing boundaries, or at least the perception thereof, holds more value than visual appeal or technical skill. I don’t entirely disagree with this, I would much rather see risk-taking and unconventional solutions. But what is the point of taking risks if the result doesn’t impact anyone outside the feedback loop? Maybe this is a lesson that visual artists can learn from musicians and filmmakers, that the greatest artistic achievements don’t just connect with an existing audience, but reach beyond that to engage and impact culture more broadly by presenting a genuinely creative vision.
Something feels out of balance in the relationship between the contemporary art scene and the rest of the world. Music and film have obvious advantages as art forms that visual art shouldn’t try to compete with necessarily, but I see no reason that visual art should, in comparison, be so irrelevant to our culture. It’s an exciting and fascinating world full of interesting characters and conversations. Most people have no connection to this, it’s a sphere that remains willfully isolated, opaque. It feels impenetrable to most people, many artists included. The answer to this isn’t more eye candy or Chihuli glass. Institutions can do a lot to increase their relevance to the outside world by explaining, in plain language, what it is they are offering and why it matters to our society. Doing this with warmth, enthusiasm, and persistence, like a good teacher would, could have a transformational effect. Instead, contemporary art in the current zeitgeist stands for little more than taping bananas to walls, and the elitism and disconnection continues to congeal.
The saddest thing about this whole situation is that by tending a walled garden, the art world misses an opportunity to bring people together through art. Have you ever fallen in love with something unexpected, simply because someone enthusiastically shared it with you? You not only found a new fascination, you gained a richer connection with the person who shared it with you. That is the role museums, curators, and galleries could and should focus on playing. By demystifying their language, they can invite a more diverse audience into meaningful dialogue. Most people just need a foothold, a friend with eccentric taste who can help them see what they’re missing.