Modern Art is Rubbish – Part 2

The YootYoob algorithm pointed me at this series from 1995, I suspect, from my watching the Matthew Collings ‘This is Modern Art’ series.

Art as a Form of Research of Experience

I present the series as reinforcement of the idea of art making, and it’s intersection with the world, as a form of basic research of experience.

The European Union website describes basic research as ‘..experimental or theoretical work undertaken primarily to acquire new knowledge of the underlying foundations of phenomena and observable facts, without any particular application or use in view.’

If we replace, in this context, the words ‘observable facts’ with ‘lived experience’, if we supplant the objective with the subjective, then there seems to be a chain or constellation of causality as applied to art.

A person has an experience of the world. The said person transposes this experience of the world into an experience of art making in the world, of the world. Through this, they reflect on the experience and it’s outcome as a kind of experiment, to see what comes out at the end.

The person, through this the person both acquires new knowledge and expresses their own knowledge of the world. In reflecting on the art by third parties, a similar outcome is achieved.

A Different History of Modernism

In this series, knowledge of the events of the time, not generally shared in popular accounts, provides some new perspectives on the experience of the time, but also reinforces old knowledge and old accounts.

The experience of artists is examined, but also a more general, societal experience is examined. Again, much of the content is mostly about white male painters, but some general themes may emerge. Even this tells you something about the experience of people of the time, and of the present.

In episodes 1 and 3, the experience between the artist and the powers that be is present. How do those in power challenge or support the work of artists? How may those in power use art to support their manifesto? Do artists collaborate with or challenge power? This has commonality with citizens. So are they silent to the vicissitudes of power, or do they express approval or disapproval?

An established artist has power granted to them by virtue of public display. The citizen may not have this power. In episode 3, it is clear that writers posed more of a threat to Nazi Germany than visual artists. Words as pamphlets and books, and publications may be shared en masse. A painting is a singular item. A reproduction of a painting is not the same as the original thing. Also, words may be more easily hidden. Words also tend to have a more concrete, descriptive, objective account. A painting is more subjective in its account of experience.

Hidden Hands – A Different History of Modernism – Channel 4 from 1995

Episode 1: Art and the CIA

Exposes the post-war role of the CIA in promoting the American abstract expressionists such as Jackson Pollock.

Episode 2: A Clean White World

Shows how an obsession with hygiene and cleanliness that pervaded the Bauhaus and modernist architects had its roots in the filth and horrors of the First World War.

Episode 3: Painting with the Enemy

Reviews the roles played by the great painters of France after their country was occupied in 1940—those who collaborated, those who stood firm.

The maker had to remove the video from the section starting at 2:07 due to a copyright claim.

Episode 4: Is Anybody There?

An exploration of the extraordinary fascination of the early Modernists such as Piet Mondrian and Kandinsky with the paranormal and the spiritualists.

Episode 1: Art and the CIA

Episode 2: A Clean White World

Freeport

Art is a scam maybe