Let's talk about art, baby!

I recently went to an exhibition at my local regional gallery with some members of my family.  In particular, I was with my sister-in-law and her partner and my two and a half-year-old son.  It was an invitation entry prize, featuring some of Australia’s best contemporary painters, including Ben Quilty, Victoria Reichelt, and Kate Shaw.  The $50000 award was won by 88-year-old indigenous artist Sally Gabori with a very impressive (and huge) abstracted depiction of a view on Bentinck Island, of which she’s the custodian.   It’s a beautiful painting which prize judge Julie Ewington even called “life-affirming”[1].  Amazing colours, fine composition, overwhelming proportions, a deserving winner.

Now, my extended family is quite intelligent, scary smart really.  A couple of PhDs, Masters degrees, and Bachelor degrees like they’re napkins at McDonald’s; but it felt like they were defaulting to me to provide a clear explanation as to why it won because I was the one to study art at uni.  The big question was why did a painting that, from first impressions, seems to be almost wholly abstract and “easy to paint” win over other works that were astoundingly well-crafted, labour-intensive objects of beauty.  It turns out that I was all too keen to provide a possible insight (mainly because I’m a bit of a show-off...), but what about those people who don’t have ready access to a smart arse like myself?  Do they feel inadequate or not worthy to offer up thoughts on artworks because they’re “not arty people”, even if they’re actually very intelligent?  I’d say yes, they probably do feel unable to voice an opinion or comment, but it’s not really a feeling of inadequacy, it’s more a feeling of being illiterate.

Art is like a language.  I don’t mean that there’s an agreed list of symbols that artists use to spell out specific messages (like if you paint a skull you mean death, or if you paint a squirrel on the northern side of an oak tree you want to marry your first cousin), but that an artwork can give you clues to what the artist may have been on about when they were making it.  These clues may not lead you exactly to what the artist intended to say with their artwork, but it does let you have a good discussion about the artwork or the artist or just stuff in general.  Surely that’s one of the main objectives of art, considering that most people aren’t going to drop $50000 to brighten up their lounge room wall. 

But back to this awful unentitled or illiterate feeling.  I believe that the reason people feel like this in a gallery situation is that they think you need to have expert knowledge and a ridiculous vocabulary to speak about art to other people, and that you need to be able to explain the artwork in its entirety.  Wrong.  It’s true, there is an “art world” full of people who can talk the talk, write the essays, and pour on the attitude, but none of that is really necessary to have a very intelligent, in-depth conversation about an artwork, its message, and its impact on the people looking at it.  It certainly helps to have a healthy understanding of art-making and art history, but in my mind, it’s the obvious comments about an artwork that say the most, and lead you to the best understandings.

When I look at an artwork, I like to go with my very first thought as my first clue in sorting out what I think the artwork is saying.  If it gives you a certain feeling, think about why it makes you feel like that, and then maybe why the artist wants you feel that way.  If it’s just a beautiful artwork, why do you think so?  It can be even simpler than that though.  Sometimes you think something like, “Bloody hell, that’s a lot of red paint!”, so why did the artist use so much?  Having a kid with you can be pretty handy to start the ball rolling.  The first thing to come out of my son’s mouth when he saw the winning Gabori painting was, “That’s big!”  And you know, he was right, it’s massive.  But that leads you to think about why the painting needed to be so big, why wasn’t it smaller.  It’d be easier to move around, look after, and install if it was half the size... why so big?  Well it seems to me that a huge, imposing painting is telling a story of a huge imposing landscape.  The painting seems to wrap around you, filling your entire field of vision.  Then you start thinking about the wild colours and how they’re drilling into you as you stand there.  It makes you feel small, and that you’re standing before something that demands your respect.  I can only imagine that Bentinck Island does the same, and if your entire culture and heritage is connected with the land, that’s a very humbling experience indeed.  Well done, my boy!  Spotting that the painting is gigantic wasn’t rocket science, but it started a great story!

The simple observations that we all make are the best way to create a dialogue with an artwork.  Dialogue is a bit of a wanky way of describing the process, but it does tend to be the best word for it.  It irritates me when I hear people saying things like, “I think the artist is saying that ...” or “This artwork means ...” Three things are happening here: firstly, they’re assuming that they fully understand the artist’s intention with the artwork; secondly, they’re reducing the impact of an artwork to a single sentence or comment; and finally, they sound like a tosser.  We shouldn’t try to sum up an artwork in an instant, it kinda seems a bit disrespectful to the artist.  It really is like a conversation between the artwork and the viewers, you figure things out as you go along, adjust what you thought before, and maybe come to a conclusion or at best an easy place to end the chat.  Do you have to have the whole thing figured out? Not at all.  Some artworks will remain a mystery to you, while others seem straightforward. 

The idea that art can only be talked about by artists and critics is stupid.  Let’s head out to a gallery, say some obvious stuff, and have a great time!

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[1] Art Almanac. 2012. Sally Gabori wins The Gold Award. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.art-almanac.com.au/2012/06/sally-gabori-wins-the-gold-award/. [Accessed 08 July 12].