At the brewery of St. Clemens a yellow picture adorns the cover of their newspaper-style menu. On the back is a small biography of the artist (from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts) and a description of his style: "[his] artistic practice fundamentally takes place in the intersection between aesthetics, politics and poetry. The works often balance subtly between a simple, clear expression and a condensed conceptual complexity of meaning. Its apparently simple expressions invite the viewer to interact with the work themselves and take part in producing meaning. "
I read this as "the pictures are boring and convoluted. Instead of putting in the craft required, a virtue is made of sloth by leaving the work of producing meaning to the observer." Quality and hard work have become anathema to modern art, instead calling ambiguity and half-done work "inviting the viewer into the creative process." The artist does not dare make a clear message, does not dare stick his neck out by making his views known. Besides, one would rather not offend anyone, and if the work's meaning is entirely up to the viewer, there is no danger of that.
Art should say something. Art should relate to its surroundings and not just to itself. The kind of art whose only question is "is this art?" has no meaning outside the art world. So much art is self-referential navel-gazing whose only question for the viewer is "is this relevant?" with only one possible answer: a resounding no.
At the same time, many have confused "relevant" with "social realism". One can quite well relate to the world in ways other than by pointing out things that are bad. It's easy to criticize, find fault and belittle. Who in the world of art stands up these days and says "This is beautiful! I like this! This is good!"? We are all experts at criticizing, but it takes courage to be for something.
When you proclaim your admiration of something, you put yourself at risk. You take a chance of being belittled or denied. But at least you have taken a viewpoint rather than shying away from any commitment. It forces you to dwell on your subject, to feel something for it, to vouch for it, rather than just flit on to demeaning the next thing. A "Yes" has always had greater consequences than a "No", but we are unable to handle the consequences. We like having an undo button, a way back, an opportunity not to be permanently damaged by the mistakes we commit: The house must be able to be sold again, the divorce should be painless. But if we do not vouch for something, we will never have anything of true value. If we try to overthrow our shitty society without taking the trouble to actually make something better, we just end up with chaotic crap instead of organized crap.
It is worth remembering Sturgeon's Law: "90% of science fiction is crap, but then again 90% of anything is crap." It's easy to find something to criticize, because there is so much that is reprehensible. When you stand up for something, take a chance, you no longer have the statistics of Sturgeon's Law on your side.
I try in my art to follow this, to look for what makes me happy and depict it. It is not always successful, and many a time I fall back on the critical and ironic, but I think that the experiment itself is important.
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