“The seminal lie of radicalism is that all change is automatically for the better, even though much of our experience of life teaches us otherwise.” – Giles Auty, Postmodernism’s Assault on Western Culture.
When I was at Art School groundless assumptions and one-sided affirmations whirled about me persistently, held me up at classroom doors, and smirked at me conspiratorially from set exercises and scheduled excursions. Sounds like paranoia pure and simple, I know, but in fact it describes the effect of institutionalised radicalism on an oversensitive (or as I sometimes prefer to think of myself: a sensorially astute) conservative (unbeknownst to myself…so yes, that would imply less than politically astute). At the time, I kept quiet. I was too overawed by the sheer scope of my intended career to begin charting a way through the mists according to any particular set of beliefs. Well, that’s not entirely true. I arrived at the base of the mountain with a history of belief at least, after exploring the possibility of a vocation in the convent (okay, go right ahead and think of Julie Andrews swinging a trunk against a backdrop of edelweiss) and so had the benefit of religious experience, with its clouds and nights and contemplations. But contrary perhaps to what is often assumed of such excursions, my mind was therefore honed to doubt, and to hesitate at assent, especially to anything that was broadly believed to be true.
I had a deep respect for my teachers at Art School, I relished the opportunities to absorb the wisdom they’d accrued in their various pursuits of the summit (and I’m not just saying that to sound humble – to this day I cannot think of their ways without intuiting some lesson or other). But as far as ideologies were concerned, I was fairly sure our paths weren’t intersecting, except in so far as our purposes crossed.
I’m a shy soul, and it’s just not in my skill set to speak dispassionately in public forums, especially on topics that are important to me, instead I keep my cards to myself, and hope someone else less likely to stuff things up will set things to right. Case in point: the much maligned art critic Giles Auty, who in my opinion has made some pretty insightful observations on certain aspects of Modern Art criticism and theory in recent years. The article from which the above quote has been taken, for example, published in Quadrant, June 2000, is worth weighing in, when considering matters of ideology as they pertain to Art, and a quick peruse could be quite illuminating if you’re in the process of rethinking your approach to the practice of and discussion of Art and Art theory. Of course, you could always disclude it from your deliberations because it lacks popular support. Actually, I would recommend that you opt out in order to preserve a contemplative reclusion from worldly disputes (a valid, meaningful position I have complete respect for, as would be self evident from the nature of this weblog), but if you happen to be amongst the fray already…well, then.
“In visual art, the rhetoric of radicalism holds total sway and we have been persuaded somehow to make novelty almost the sole effective index of quality.” - ibid
I’m picturing in my head the vast white walls of my local national gallery, patterned as they are with those works that best demonstrate the ‘boundary pushing’ that has indeed become the defining criterion of worthiness, and I’m almost certain that as I gaze upon the bold, monumental, controversial friends of my youth, there are actual scales falling from my eyes. They were loosely attached, I’d like to believe I’ve been looking around them for years, but sometimes the voice of another gives the necessary jolt to shake them off.
