Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci
In today's article I want to demonstrate aspects from the world of contemporary art in my pursuit to develop and provoke thought on art. Although it may seem that I am sceptical of contemporary art, this is a misconception. I am trying to bluntly lay down the facts and what these facts portray, to stimulate thought which searches for logic within the strange world of present.
The introduction of a comparison between the past and the present is not an invention of my own... quite the opposite! I am likening these works because writers and critics of art have themselves devised analogies between the works of the present and the past. For this reason I decided to build upon the work of these academics by focusing not on their words and writings but on the visual aspect.
Let us take a look...
David Shrigley invented that which the critics labelled as a reflection, or echo, or a relationship with Michelangelo's David, and even with Donatello's David. It is important to remark that while the two Renaissance Davids are human symbols of historical heroism and mythology, Shrigley produced a male doll which is constantly urinating, as can be seen in the image provided. This 2013 masterpiece was also shortlisted and highly applauded for the Turner Prize, a prestigious contemporary art event, if not the most prestigious, which exists today. With their David, both Michelangelo and Donatello created a symbolic epic, one which demonstrates the power of a small state which is victorious in the fight against oppression, a symbol which today may indeed make perfect sense in the atrocious war against Gaza. Yet the art world honours urine.
The work of Pawel Althamer Monika and Powel was compared to both Dürer's and Rodin's Adam and Eve. The work of Althamer was recently exhibited at London's Hayward Gallery. This work was slightly more significant than most of the works in the same space. These appear as a 21st century Adam and Eve. Instead of an apple, they are draped with modern technological devices.
I am perplexed as to how the ridiculous work Schmatte with President by Rachel Harrison, a piece which was also exhibited at London's Hayward, was compared to one of the masterpieces of human art, Rodin's Balzac.
Other examples... Canova with the work of Spartacus Chetwynd, a Turner Prize 2012 participant who in 2010 exhibited at St James Cavalier in Valletta.
When I find myself passionately studying this subject, I cannot disregard the theses which debate aesthetics throughout history, from Plato up to today. Without question, I must delve into the idea of the sublime as developed by Plato and poeticised by Keats. The latter, in the most profoundly beautiful manner, proclaimed that truth is beauty, and beauty is truth. He also upheld that no other path could reveal truth to us and the relationship between truth and beauty.
Thus, when I visit exhibitions and study the contemporary art scene and witness such sordid ugliness, I search within myself in an attempt to wring some form of sense. At this point Plato together with Keats returns into my life, although to lead me once again into a labyrinthine journey without end.
Today's artists are creating works of a certain incredible ugliness, as these images show, since society has arrived at an abyss of degradation, a point which is almost irreversible. At least this is the result conveyed by most of these works. This statement is a valuable one. However, if today's truth is one of ugliness, how would one be able to interpret the Platonic thesis which states that truth is beauty? What sense could Keats' poetic statement "Truth is beauty, and beauty truth... and that is all ye need to know" make when one sees Rachel Harrison's Schmatte with President, which according to experts reincarnates the ugliness of slavery and racism.
On one side, the 21st century seems to be telling us that art needs to show the ugliness of existence by means of the idealisation of the hideous. While the art of the past affronts life's cruelties by creating an antithetical aesthetic based on the idealisation of beauty.
Which is the right path? The first, the modernist trajectory, places ugliness directly in front of you, an ugliness which surrounds one's entire life until it neutralises and renders one impotent to the radical choice. On the other extreme, the other presents beauty with the objective of obliterating memory and of distancing one from the horrors of reality, and thus likewise succeeds in neutralising, to maintain one's stance.
Maybe we've arrived at a historical moment when beauty is once again holding its head up high and becoming a revolutionary weapon against the abominations which engulf us.
These questions instigated the writing of my new book, Shostakovich, Britten, Stravinsky and the Painters in between: 1936, published last month. It is also a topic, which will be debated within the context of a contemporary art biennale during next year's Mdina Biennale, an international large-scale exhibition which will permit the questioning and analysis on the present condition of art in this Medieval-Baroque city.
Article edited and translated by Nikki Petroni