Is art dying?
We have a lot to worry about. With the economy, a new president and the deaths of stars like Michael Jackson and Patrick Swayze, who has time for art, right? Wrong! Absolutely wrong.
I had the great fortune of volunteering every Saturday this past summer at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pa. My boss was the director of education at the museum. Her Saturday mornings began with a cup of coffee and a sigh over how museum attendance was declining. This was pretty obvious, as our attendance was lackluster at best (you’d think that situating a craft studio in the basement next to the bathrooms and 50-cent photo booth would attract herds of people). While I can sympathize with her, I can’t help but wonder — is this necessarily a sign of our generation’s lack of artistic interest? Or is it an indicator of the public’s rapidly growing access to art, their rejection of the snobbery so many associate with museums? Let’s be real — Google search “Andy Warhol.” You’ve seen one Campbell’s soup can, you’ve seen them all — a whole room full of them. Not exactly groundbreaking.
To sound like a broken record: the Internet is changing the way we live. So is television, and maybe even billboards. All of these mechanisms of communication are changing the way we see art as well. Art is no longer cooped up in a museum, accessible to only those willing to pay the $15 entrance fee. It’s on the Internet, it’s on television and even coffee mugs.
The entire definition of art is taking on new forms. What we once considered art, such as sculpture and painting, is now being brought into new realms. The sculpture of old (made from bronze, marble, stone, etc.) is now making way for new mediums. The new world of painting is able to make room for both abstraction and realism. In fact, a number of modern day painters are incorporating both abstract and realist structure in their works. This includes the Cynical Realists of China, who incorporate human figures with often abstract shapes, proportions and backgrounds in order to convey a focus on socio-political issues.
A man walked into our humble little studio at the Warhol and said something that really caught my attention.
“Pop was really the last big art movement,” he said. “The real artists of today are all those computer graphics people making movies.”
And, yeah, he’s right, in a sense. I’m not going to debate whether or not pop was the last movement — what’s happening today is much more progressive. Perhaps there have not been any recent movements because it would be nearly impossible to group more than five current artists into one style.
As some may know, pop’s main inspiration was mass production (at least in regarding Andy Warhol). Warhol produced so many copies of each painting because he was fascinated by the idea of public consumption. Today’s art is being so consumed by the public that half of the population probably doesn’t realize it’s art! This is because there’s something for every interest and every demand. Artists like computer graphics people are making money because people still love movies with great graphics and are willing to shed $10 or so to see them.
It is because of this public take-over that art critics are now a dying breed. Why should people eat up what a critic has to say about a painting, when they can just look at it themselves and decide? Why should I go to a museum when I can go to a local art gallery and see what’s happening right now?
That’s exactly what this column encompasses: what’s happening now. Art is not dead! Whether in the world, in America or right here at AU, art is progressing every minute because no one is doing the exact same thing (and if they are, you can be sure that someone is out there blogging about it and explaining). Art is all around us, so why not talk about it?
You can reach this columnist at thescene@theeagleonline.com.