The Citizen, 2011-05-26, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MAY 26, 2011. PAGE 5.
M odern Art is what happens when
painters stop looking at girls and
persuade themselves that they have
a better idea.
– John Ciardi
Call me a retrograde male chauvinist
Philistine, but I believe Mister Ciardi had a
point. Too bad the American poet kicked the
bucket about 25 years ago – he could have
stuck around and died laughing at the antics of
the contemporary British artist Agnieszka
Kurant.
Near as I can tell, Ms. Kurant doesn’t pay
the rent by selling paintings from her studio or
through a gallery; she does it by submitting
‘conceptual pieces’ to organizations like The
Arts Council of England. By ‘conceptual’ I
mean that Ms. Kurant makes a living selling
works of art that do not physically exist. How
does that work? Well, recently Ms. Kurant
approached Arts Council England with her
most recent work.
A blank canvas.
Not just a blank canvas, mind – stapled to
the canvas was a ‘notice of intention’ from Ms.
Kurant indicating that she “plans to paint
something on it in the future”.
The empty canvas represents a school of
artistic philosophy that Ms. Kurant is currently
exploring – call it the ‘less is more, nothing is
everything’ school. Her sales pitch to the
Council also offered a ‘sculpture’ that has not
actually been sculpted yet, and a two hour and
forty minute movie she had produced,
directed, performed in and filmed.
We’d have to take her word on that too –
because she deliberately shot it with no film in
her camera.
Lame? You betcha – but it worked. Arts
Council England eagerly ponied up the
equivalent of $2,300 for the blank canvas, the
non-sculpture and the pictureless picture
show.
Not only is Ms Kurant’s work lame, it’s not
even original. The American composer John
Cage beat her out by more than half a century
with his seminal musical composition called
‘Four, thirty-three’.
It is a three-movement piece composed by
Cage back in 1952. He insisted that it was
suitable for any instrument or combination of
instruments. That means ‘Four, thirty-three’
can be performed on a trumpet or a tuba; a
Stradivarius or a banjo; a saxophone or a
kazoo. It really doesn’t matter if it’s performed
by a full-dress symphony orchestra in
Carnegie Hall or a pickup blues band
in a Yonge Street strip joint. Its execution is
always exactly, precisely the same: the first
movement lasts thirty seconds, the second
movement is two minutes, twenty-three
seconds; the final movement, one minute and
forty seconds.
The result? Cage’s masterpiece – ‘Four,
thirty-three’, aka 4’33” (do the math). Four
minutes and thirty-three seconds.
Of silence.
Or rather, not silence, but random noises – a
truck horn, someone coughing, a fly buzzing,
the rustle of the musical score as the performer
slides through the movements – whatever
noise happens while Cage’s composition is
(not) being played.
For that was Cage’s point (as much as he had
a point) – that true art should be free from the
influence of composer and performer,
consisting entirely of what the audience
experiences. Which is pretty much the mirror
opposite of what most people think of as art.
You don’t listen to a recording of Pablo Casals
to hear traffic noises, go to an art gallery to see
blank walls or attend a ballet to stare at an
empty stage.
Or am I wrong? Is ‘art’, as we know it –
have known it since some Cro magnon dipped
his fingers in red ochre and smeared it on a
cave wall – dead? In 2004, Cage’s ‘Four,
thirty-three’ was voted 40th place in ABC
radio’s Classic 100 all time great piano pieces.
Think about that: four minutes and change of
random noise was judged to be superior to
works by Beethoven, Bach and Brahms.
Or is it all a shuck – a hustle? “Art” John
Cage once said, “is anything you can get away
with”.
The pop musician Frank Zappa had a more
thoughtful take. “The most important thing in
art” opined Zappa, “is The Frame. For
painting: literally; for other arts: figuratively –
because, without this humble appliance, you
can’t know where The Art stops and The Real
World begins. You have to put a ‘box’ around
it because otherwise, what is that s—t on the
wall?”
Good point, Frank. Good question, too.
Arthur
Black
Other Views Art: whatever you can get away with?
While I may be writing this column on
Friday, if you’re reading this
newspaper, I’m assuming that my
friends came up over the weekend to celebrate
my birthday, that we got sunburned and tried to
golf and that I eventually woke up on Tuesday
morning and laid out this issue of The Citizen.
That is, unless, a California-based Christian
group called Family Radio was right and the
world ended on Saturday.
According to the group’s website, a rolling
earthquake will mark the beginning of the end
and by Sunday it will all be over and none of
us would have been around to celebrate our
beloved Victoria Day holiday.
So as I said, if this is true and the Family
Radio prediction worked out, this column will
have remained on my computer, having only
been read by me, because printing of the
newspaper wouldn’t have happened on
Tuesday. The world will have been long gone
by then.
There are, of course, financial implications
to the end of the world (or at least the
prediction of the end of the world). Family
Radio is said to have a net worth of over $120
million. The group’s prediction of the end of
the world is said to come alongside a blatant
and upfront request for funding from those
who believe the rapture is upon us.
In addition, a news report prepared by CBC
says that many of the true believers of such
apocalyptic claims can go to great lengths to
convince others that the end is upon us.
There have been reports of people quitting
their jobs and selling their homes to show
others just how seriously they’re taking the
‘end of the world’ and once it’s all over (the
prediction, not the world) these people are left
wiped out; emotionally, as well as financially.
There are even greater consequences. Some
people have been so committed to the end of
the world that once it doesn’t happen, they take
it upon themselves to end their world for
themselves. Once finances are wiped out and
bubbles are burst, suicide has been an option
for some people, as sad as it may seem.
I’m sure that for many of us, myself
included, you can’t help but watch the clock
tick past when these fateful moments in time
are alleged to happen. I mean, who among us
didn’t hold his breath once the clock struck
11:59 p.m. on Dec. 31, 1999 and the
countdown was on. But then of course, two
minutes later we all wondered what we were
going to do with a dozen flashlights and a
basement full of canned goods.
But I guess Y2K wasn’t supposed to be the
end of the world, it was supposed to be a big
blackout. We had to wait until August, 2003 for
that one. Hopefully everyone kept one or two
of their Y2K flashlights.
The Mayan calendar tells us a similar story,
but according to the Mayans, we’ll at least be
able to celebrate one more Christmas and buy
presents for another. They say the world will
end on Dec. 21, 2012, and this movement has
its own set of followers. So if we’re still here
and the world didn’t end on Saturday, I guess
there’s always next year to look forward to.
But as far as I’m concerned, I’m playing
with house money on this one. If I’m right and
the world sticks around for a little while longer,
then that’s great. Everyone gets to live
for a while longer and you get to read another
issue of The Citizen. But if Family Radio is
right and the world does end, no one will have
read this column anyway and no one will
have to know just how wrong I was. Sounds to
me like a win/win situation in the sickest of
ways.
If you’re reading this
Things used to be built to last. I’m not
being ornery or crotchety saying that,
I’m just stating a simple fact.
Within my adult life I’ve noticed that
products that were built recently seem to break
down far sooner than their counterparts from
as early as five or 10 years ago.
Whether it’s the laptop I purchased when I
started university (which is still kicking,
despite taking the brunt of getting hit by a car)
being compared to the one I bought
four years ago whose screen just burnt out
(and no, I will not pay $800 to fix a
$1,500 laptop) or whether it’s the Nintendo
from 1990 that I have that still works
being compared to the Playstation 2
(that’s about eight years old) that can’t
even power on, things don’t last like
they used do.
That’s why it’s so gratifying to meet people
of The Wally Byam Caravan Club
International Ontario Canada Unit at the
Airstream Rally that was held at the Blyth
Campground earlier this week.
I visited on two separate occasions and on
both, got two very different takes on the
product they have built a consumer
culture around; Airstream trailers and motor
homes.
The product, if you’re not familiar with it,
is a stream-line trailer which drastically
reduces the drag created by hauling a trailer,
and thus drastically reduces the strain put on
an engine.
One gentleman said, and I’m sure I’ll be
parroting the story the encounters generated
here a little, that he would often forget he was
towing the trailer because of how little drag it
creates in comparison to other trailers he has
towed.
While that impressed me, what really
impressed me is the fact that most of the
trailers had some age on them. Some were
forty years old, one, which was being shown
as a historical piece, was just two decades shy
of having a century under its belt.
As cliche as it is, they simply don’t build
them like that anymore.
It’s an important lesson for youth to learn –
that things that stand the test of time are worth
investing in.
My first questioning of the quality of
modern productory came courtesy of Marty
McFly (of Back to the Future fame).
Marty wondered why Doc Brown didn’t
simply land the DeLorean-turned-time-
machine on Biff Tannen’s ’46 Ford.
Doc Brown explained that the Ford
would rip through the DeLorean
“like tin foil”.
My seven-year-old self (and no, that
wasn’t when the movie came out, just when I
saw it) turned to my mother and asked
why an old car would be built much stronger
than a new car. The answer was something
along the lines of lighter cars were safer in the
result of a collision.
My immediate question was what if I had to
go back in time to stop someone in a heavier
car, how would I manage?
I don’t ever recall getting an answer to
that.
Sometimes new things are necessary; for
example, computers will need to become
faster as we task them with more work, cars
will need to become more fuel efficient as our
sources of oil continue to dwindle and new
technologies to provide the basic necessities of
life will ensure that the quality of life remains
the same.
I don’t see, however, why this means that
my new laptop won’t last half as long as my
old one did.
I don’t see when my laptop’s outer shell,
which used to be primarly fairly sturdy
aluminim now needs to have large portions of
it made of plastic and I really don’t see why
things like appliances need to be made
flimsier.
Sure, a newer, lighter refrigerator is a heck
of a lot easier to move, but it’s also a heck of a
lot easier to break, and who doesn’t want to
have that massive television with the wooden
cabinet. I’ll tell you, my family still has one of
those, it’s survived four kids thus far and I
doubt it will be kicking the bucket anytime
soon.
I’m all for innovation, I just don’t see the
point in having innovation come at the cost of
solid construction.
I can remember my grandparents having the
same stove and refrigerator(s) for decades.
They recently replaced them with new
models, but those things lasted as long as
I’ve been alive and been capable of
recollection.
So when the folks of the Ontario Canada
Unit of the Wally Byam Caravan Club
International told me about the lasting material
and construction of their Airstream trailers and
RVs, I could definitely appreciate what they
were saying.
I’ll always be in awe (as someone with next
to no knowledge of engineering and
construction) of products that are built and
last, at least until I finally get myself a
DeLorean time machine.
Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn’s Sense
Denny
Scott
Denny’s Den
Hardiness a sign of long-lasting quality
He who never made a mistake never made a
discovery.
– Samuel Smiles
Final Thought