It IS a tumor!

Is painting dead? I have seen this question a lot lately and in fact, by association, it is addressed in many of the books I have been consuming. There is a discussion circulating through the public veins that began as a tumor elsewhere in the body of the art world. The tumor was the notion of “art for art’s sake”, embedded in the whole post modern era. The claim that art was art simply by claiming it to be, effectively stripped all things that made art, well, art. It was saying that anything was art, as long as you called it that. This was no off the cuff nickname that happened to stick because there was an element of truth to it either, rather it was the culmination of decades of pressure to stretch the limits of expression and limitlessness. Someone had to say it and no one knew what to say in response, so it lingers like a good comeback or punch line, mistaken for poignant revelation.

As for Post Modern, it is often referred to as a movement and paintings are described as being post modern, but post modern really refers to the time after modern or after WWII when the hinges came off of aesthetic rigor in the art world and when the spectacle was born as a replacement for true artistic dialogue.
The symptoms leading to the tumor however started well over a hundred years ago, or further, when artists really began liberating painting in public acceptance from just being a craft or vocation. Much like symptoms that lead to tumors like excessive drinking or smoking, the things that lead to this disease were expressions of exploration and celebration and innovation. Many movements were born that enriched art as we know it and that have informed society, philosophy, and advances of all kinds since. We are better for our art. We are worse with this tumor.

I should clarify though, the tumor is in the ‘art world’, not necessarily in our art or in the act of painting. The two realms are different and it is in this observation that saying painting is dead becomes erroneous. Painting is not dead. I highly doubt it ever will be. We have been painting for 40 thousand years and the cover of Art News last month points out that the industry is in the 25 billion dollar a year range today. No, it isn’t painting, but the art world that is dying as we know it. It will fight however, as it is no longer a community, but an enterprise or an industry, a corporation essentially, with profits. People fight for money. The problem is, it is killing itself by feeding on itself. If it were still a community supporting artists it would be adapting and evolving in a sustainable manner. But it isn’t. It is a business and a business makes pictures, not art. Sure it will struggle, but something will have to give. I won’t go as far to suggest the industry will actually die away. It is far too large and possesses the illusion of grander content to just go away. It will have to change from propagating the tyranny of the gallery system and the requisite lackies therein driven by market forces and the subjugation of profiteering however, if it wishes to survive. It is a system still riding the coattails of the likes of Warhol, assuming that his formula was evidence enough that movements could be replaced by trends and conversation could be replaced by spectacle. Sure there may always be the Thomas Kincaids and the random ‘abstract’ canvas around to match your couch, but in this age of information proliferation and distribution contract emancipation (as seen in the record industry as of late) the animal we call the art world will have to change, not because I want it to, but because it’s blood is contaminated with the cancer cells of thoughtless art.