LIFE - ART - RULERSHIP
İnsel İnal
“Have I created it have I created it,
Have I created sorrow and torment
Have I created it if sin became delight
Have I created it if order became corrupt.
Orhan Gencebay
It is not so hard to understand today’s art. What is seen at first may seem a little hazy but actually this haze represents the haze between art and life.
In order to consume art, one should first get rid of codes. We know that in every era, art has problems with previous codes and the audience which is shaped by their perceptions and knowledge Marcel Duchamp declared that the retinal art is over, by making a fresh start with the line he has drawn between himself and his precedents and creating a new formation in perception. Is the era of the aesthetic appearance getting to an end? And is it getting to an end around the year 1910?
It has always been like this in the history of art. Even today, after 100 years, my students aged around 20’s, put barriers between themselves and Marcel Duchamp such as ‘play station’ and ‘youtube’. They have difficulty in understanding, when they come face to face with the artist who belongs to the previous century. Isn’t it strange? Would there be no problem if Duchamp used a brush and paint to depict a flower on the canvas? Maybe he would have been forgotten, since he had not managed to make himself memorable by making those kinds of paintings. Who knows…
The only unique aspect of Duchamp art was that it had no anxiety to resemble some other thing. It was not an imitation or an illusion, it had it’s own air. It was real, not a reflection of the reality.
Is art something that still imitates reality? Or is it some other reality altogether? Is it something that should be researched individually, something independent that makes it’s own existence without referring to anything else? Or is it a representation of a flower or a human being? Is it necessary to know and study nature and human to understand art or should we learn art together with all it’s relations according to the art contexts?
Currently, the artist produces art in order to define himself, not anything else. He serves himself, not anyone else. Just like the contemporary philosophers, but the difference is that he does this by using indicators, paint, canvas, objects, body and space.
This actually needs a bit more thinking. Because it would be a more correct move if we have knowledge about stylistic differences and think about them, before we define 2000's art and it’s function in order to understand them.
This process of thinking should bring out creative educational methods by triggering the educationalists as well. There are also the consumption methods. Museums and exhibition processes, collectors, exhibition methods and problematic occurrences in public areas are another aspect that completes art.
Generally I can say there are at least five topics to be considered while studying arts condition in every era. What art means, stylistic differences, methods of forming a dialogue, consumption process and education.
The most important aspect of Fluxus movement is that it blurs the border between life and art. This act of blurring is much discussed in performance art. The term “Blurring” means a lot to us.
In contrast to the fact that art shows, points to, imitates and justifies what is determined, especially when it comes to fluxus and his art, art and life gets intermingled. What is the point that art ends and life starts? Or where does life end and art starts?
Actually, neither of them starts where the other ends. The get mingled. When Beuys said "Thought is plastic" he indicated that every thought can be an art work. Like when he says “Everybody is an artist”, he indicates that everybody can be an artist.
This is one of the approaches that effected 70’s and the upcoming years. Questioning the audience-artist meaning and context once again, the art environments in which the exhibitor becomes the exhibit and the audience becomes the demonstrator, defining the difference between the artist and the activist, art's collaboration with not only it’s own disciplines but also with all the other areas have still been effective in today’s art. When we look at today, we see that art puts the concept of life in the centre. It conveys information through the art work. This is not something unknown. Maybe it is the knowledge of the things that have always been ignored and can’t be seen today, just because the opposite is widely known.
This relationship, which is concluded with a state of awareness between the audience and the content, creates an experience of art which does not give mere pleasure but finds a place in our minds. The audience tries to extend their awareness by using the artwork. And the artist creates an experimental dialogue between himself and the audience which will become the foundation of another, new project.
I do not know whether every artist creates his or her thoughts with this aim but the fact that an art work sticks in our minds is an important factor in the means of persistence of the art work. This persistence is closely related with the form of the content which conveys the information. Form has many different effects compared to the material. Many materials like canvas, paint, video, light, sound and projects that are shaped by body and object, represent different presentations of the artist's expression.
Especially, Arte Povera Group is in the search of a new language which will reinforce their expression. They use convertible, worthless materials in contrast to the art Works which are made of shiny and accepted materials and are seen in elite, sterile galleries.
Also, by using these semiotic, sub-statements the artists wanted their artwork to be seen as an act which confronts the museums. Art can not be seen as commodity and what is important about art is it’s content rather than it’s material. If an artwork which should be produced by using precious materials can be produced by using materials that will disappear, then different contexts created by different materials will give birth to a new language.
Post Object Art movement seems more comprehensible and acceptable when we consider it this way. While art without an object relies on the principle of expressing, by giving emphasis to linguistic and semiotic theories, textual based projects are developed. According to me, the most basic purpose is to reshape art and to consider it’s functions. Every movement gathered under the name of conceptual art, developed projects in which thought has the first place by reshaping art. Video, happening and performance, body, earth, the poor and the minimal art confirmed to the criterion of conceptual art and created their own existence.
Presentation of the projects and these knowledge conveying objects’ themselves becoming knowledge objects created the necessity to hide these objects and their documentations. In this context, in the process until today the museums shaped their fictional structure according to the ideology and sensitivity which are mostly included in the projects of artists (Andy Warhol, Daniel Buren, Daniel Spoerri, Robert Filliou, Bertrand Lavier, Hans Haacke, Joseph Kosuth) and writer intellectuals (Bruce Ferguson, Adorno, Marcel Proust, Hal Foster).
Because, now the artist’s desire is to establish a connection with the audience through the content of the artwork. Even most of the artists are forming their artwork based on the dialogues they produce.
Establishing connections through the art project is considered as an important fact in today’s art. We also see that the dialogues formed through art are placed in the centre of many artworks. We can even say forming dialogue through artwork is the aim, rather than a step during the process.
Although dialogue forming seems to be one of the most important methods of creating awareness, there are also other reasons for forming a dialogue. It erases the differences between the artist and the audience and thus creates a more democratic environment. This means everybody is equal. There is no difference.
Just like the fact that art is for everyone. These things I tell still seem incomprehensible to many people. Mostly they claim that art should be material oriented. But my personal opinion is that it is necessary to render the education process in art from being craft centered. The art education should teach the potential artists to express their ideas and to set their position in life to create and to consolidate. The education should start with the artist who recognizes his environment and internalizes the events. If we accept that art is formed according to the problems and is reinforced by the thinking theories about the problematic issues, we can create the candidate’s diversity only by establishing his relation with the environment. The process of knowing what is happening around you should start with daily newspapers, and should develop by recognizing and commenting on them. This process should later on lead us to this question which comes from the initializing of the problems: “What can I do?”. Undoubtedly, when it comes to the art student, this question would create the desire to intervene. The strife-project which is developed under the supervision of the educator during and after the intervention will become the word of the student.
Because, the internalization of the experience and the attitude will create the word. Word will trigger the dialogues.
These strife-projects which will encourage cultural awareness will also teach the power of art to the student.
To sum up, I can say that the procedure of producing today’s art is as hard as the one followed in order to understanding it. Today nobody can become persistent by saying “I will stay at home or at the workshop, I will paint and everybody would think I am a painter. I will use the materials most effectively. What should I produce today?” The artworks of those who has a problem, who knows awareness, who does not hide and likes to be different, who recognizes himself and his environments, who dos not ignore but perceive, who reshapes the concepts, who does not look for a hierarchical relationship between disciplines and materials and who desires to destroy all hierarchical concepts will become the art criterion for the years 2000.
The tendency to ask the question “What is this? Is this art, an experiment or a research?” to someone and/or to a group whose aim is to create dialogue with their project in a moment or an environment in which all the means of escaping are limited by the rulership will indirectly make the consumption and conversion in art easier. This is really important in the means of the arts developing, consumption and conversion. This privilege, which can not be achieved even by the rulership members who desire equality and want to have a better picture of community by expansions, only exists in art.
In this context, I can not prevent myself from thinking that the art of 2000 is even more powerful than the rulership.
