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First Degree An Art History student charts his progress... | |||||||
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Fledgling | |||||||
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Jan/Feb 2010 Living in a house with three other students I end up half-watching quite a bit of TV. Like a nightmarish youth-stereotype we all perch on our rented white leather sofas and eat dinner bathed in the warm, flickering glow of the idiot-box. However, we generally just have this ridiculous machine on in the background whilst we chat, occasionally screaming obscenities at the risible adverts, pointing out errors in their claims, such as ìAttracts water like a magnet?î. So not at all then. I think you mean attracts water in the same way a magnet attracts iron filings. There was one programme that was quite hard not to watch, one that I had heard about a long time ago and appropriately dismissed as total shite. The School of Saatchi (BBC2) is a kind of X-Factor talent contest for artists. From a hundred initial interviews with applicants a set of judges whittle them down to twelve potentials. Those twelve are then reduced to six based on the eponymous collector’s taste and the remaining are set a series of challenges to demonstrate their aptitude. The winner of the A-Factor gets to exhibit in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg and take up residence in a Saatchi-sponsored London studio. This show is a gold-mine for anyone wishing to prove contemporary art is total bollocks. In the context of this hour-long extravaganza of vacuity, Tracey Emin genuinely comes across as the most erudite, sensible and considered person there. Barely twenty seconds into it, Kate Bush, London’s most prominent curator (not sure what that really means) has got the intellectual ball rolling with ìI would say that art is an expression of the intention of the artist, and their expression is what constitutes the artî. Yes indeed. Her manner of speaking – eyes up to the side when forming ideas and incongruously emphasised words – is reminiscent of a posh seven-year-old girl being interviewed about her mummy and daddy’s jobs. Which I imagine were being filthy rich. The art critic Matthew Collings is the resident ‘sceptic’ (ludicrous, a sceptic would have flatly refused to be involved in the program) is also painfully uninformed about basic art history: ìThere is no really good answer as to why art chooses to take the form of installations and videos and alienated nick-nacks and bric-a-brac and fragmented stuff that anybody could do.î Well there is you perpetually open-mouthed, grinning twat, but it may too difficult for you to grasp. I found the directional intentions of the show seemingly scatter-gun. The initial audition process proceeded like an old comedy show with trombones, tubas and piccolos sound-tracking the embarrassed contestant’s lame proposals. Occasionally we saw an air-headed chump stuttering their way through some half-remembered post-modernist theory, ìUmÖfiltered through processÖerÖfragmented human experienceÖî The sight of Emin really bollocking someone for blagging it was quite surreal. But, like the X-Factor or the numerous other reality talent shows, the slick editing of the show meant we saw the very best or the very worst of people and we were encouraged to blindly mock or praise. The semi-finalists barely understood their own practice and their thoughts were revealed in the candid, chatting sequences. They moan about being asked ‘What is Art?’ in reference to clearly derivative video installations more suited to wildlife documentaries and they constantly talked of ‘explanations’ and ‘backing-up work in ways that sound professional’. Charles Saatchi is an advertiser first and foremost and it was clear in the second round who would get through to keep the show watchable. We had the interesting back-story man (flamboyantly camp second generation English-Pakistani), the pretty girl eye-candy who will spend the next five weeks prancing round keeping my demographic happy and we got a few down to earth, normal ones to stop the show becoming too freakish. These are simple formulas that make successful TV. However it angers me that TV has strayed into this particular realm. When I see someone telling me that a whistle hanging off a disabled toilet rail is radical art because it follows a precedent set by Marcel Duchamp (which is now almost a hundred years old) I feel like my interests are being pissed on. Saatchi never appears in person. We only see him as that iconic black and white photograph and hear him through the oracular mouthpiece of his PA Rebecca Wilson. The second episode was going to follow their attempts to make accessible public art in Hastings and during the preview we got a shot of that public – a fat, squinting man stuffing his face with chips on the sea-front. Oh ho! They'll never be able to please him will they? He’ll probably be really conservative with his artistic tastes and not ‘get’ Art. Just like good comedy, which I dearly love, Art needs a weight of intellect and this was the most clearly lacking attribute in contestants and judges alike. | |||||||
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Fledgling All of this site is | |||||||
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