If It's Not Art, What Is It?

So before I let myself go about Tracey Emin, a few words about what YBA crew have actually produced.  In some of the reviews of the big Pop Art Exhibition currently filling the coffers of the Tate Modern the point’s been made that most pieces of Pop Art were comprehensible in a matter of seconds.  You look at it, get the point, and move on.  There is no depth; you don’t “lose yourself” contemplating a Lichtenstein or a Warhol.  This may or may not be a criticism; but the lesson the YBAs (Young British Artists as were – they’re mostly in their later 40s now) seem to have learned is that extreme novelty is a selling point.  That might take the form of gruesome dealings in dead animals (slaughtered for the occasion, let’s not forget), extreme sexual explicitness, or a sad parading of the detritus of their daily lives.  I would argue that, whatever these pieces may be, they are not Art.  So what are they?  How about reviving a term from the 19^th Century – they’re “Conversation Pieces”; an updated version of the sort of thing a rich Victorian might keep in his salon to provide an ice-breaking topic of conversation with his guests.  It could be an interesting arrangement of stuffed animals, like this one from among many produced by Mr Walter Potter from Bramber, Sussex in the second half of the 19^th Century (click on it to enlarge): 

Actually, that's both more fun and more gruesome than anything Damien Hirst has dreamed up.  And nobody's called it Art - it's Taxidermy.


(Article first published 09/10/2009)