Degenerate art in a degenerated time

"When the sun of culture is low on the horizon, even dwarfs cast great shadows." (Jean Clair)

In the first article ART IS AN EYE THAT LOOKS AT YOU

of this column, we introduced the theme of the role of art and how it is inevitable the fact that it can at the same time the fruit of society and vision on it.

How much does this being a child of her time really make her critical of the present and how much is she crushed, addicted to the same consumerist dynamics that smash the distracted passers-by and attentive observers?

THE CLAIR "CASE"

Several years ago, an essay by Jean Clair (pseudonym of Gérard Régnier), French writer, art historian and curator, made a lot of noise. "The winter of culture" was a real manifesto against "contemporary degeneration" in which he bluntly defined the art of these years as an adept of commercialisation and cultural homologation, with inevitable results of aesthetic flattening and emptying of the meaning.

In short, an art born exclusively of a marketing mentality and not of real artistic research. As a solution, Clair proposed a return to figuration and the canons of the classical beauty. This statement split public opinion in two, known and unknown, in which literally two factions were formed, for or against this manifesto that in fact launched an alarm and opened many reflections.

QUESTIONS THAT TRIGGER QUESTIONS

Is today’s art really a degeneration of taste, a challenge taken to the extreme, in the continuous and desperate attempt to gain visibility and market?

The contemporary art scene is as varied as it is, but in fact it is true that the art that is most in the spotlight is, at least in recent decades, especially the one it causes, and that is often not immediately understandable.

Is this being incomprehensible to most the result of artistic research or a mere challenging exercise? And does this challenge have a connection to society and the life we lead today or is it an end in itself? And does all this happen exclusively for market logic?

No answer, if anything, other questions:

Does this "degenerate" art have a market? What kind of market? Why at this point would we have to ask ourselves why such art is in demand, and by whom?

Are these buyers art lovers or accumulators of "quoted" objects children of the fashion of the moment? Maybe both.

Perhaps we are faced with artists who do not like their art and who sell it to buyers who in turn do not love it. A pure commercial exercise: can we then talk about art?

Perhaps we are faced with artists who experiment with deliberately "not beautiful" art forms (in the sense of pleasantness around which there is a certain consensus) because this "corrupt" society does not deserve better, and buyers love these works because they are like a cry? Maybe both.

NO SOLUTION

Personally, I share the perplexity in front of certain contemporary art that really, no matter how hard I try, sometimes seems to do everything not to like it and not to make sense. But I do not believe that the solution is the return to the past and if it ever were, it could not be announced or imposed, but it would be the result of a gradual change of sensitivity.

I will say more, I do not even believe that this my (yours, yours, possibly) perplexity must necessarily "have a solution": what must be solved? the disorder? the annoyance? the doubt? But isn't this (also) the function of "true" art?

I believe that if we really want to talk about the degradation of art devoted exclusively to pro-market provocation, then, simply, once again, it is the daughter of its time. It feeds it, exaggerates it, exasperates it, makes it visible even to those who, perhaps, think they are out of it. But no.

Miriam Fusconi