The art of the past lives on, largely independent of ideological propositions significant to us now. But creating art demands an ideological purpose. ‘Art for art’s sake’ was never more than a slogan.
Aesthetic value needs not be at odds with ideological content but can transcend it, just as timeless human emotions can exist apart from, and be more valid than, any ideology.
Today’s media and curatorial focus on the ‘cutting edge’ caricatures art’s instinct for innovation and misrepresents the ways of creative art. It is heavily judgmental, goes by externals and personalities, and responds to art on the level either of pretentious texts or Hello-type gossip.
Innovation comes in many sizes, and is scarcely ever the property of groups or movements. Avoiding ‘the tradition of art-object-making’ is not in itself innovative; the phrase points to a very limited, itself by now traditional, view of art. Altogether, negatives do not serve art well.
Like Peter Fuller - many of whose views and methods I could not share, and whose ringing anathemas made one suspect him of setting discrimination aside to uphold a developing ideology - I believe that painting, drawing and sculpture still have a preeminent position in art, inviting each of us to attend to and engage with these human distillations. Other forms of art - videos, installations, etc. - can and on occasion do issue such an invitation but generally still appear to be overcome by self-regard on the level of process (just like bad painting and drawing).
Complete autonomy is not to be found in any human action or product. Partial autonomy, as when each art form or medium gives priority to its particular means of expression, can be a profitable option, but so can the opposite option of bringing diverse forms and media into close collaboration. An apt example, this, of how art may appear to thrive by insisting on this or that principle, often for ideological reasons, but refuses to adhere to it for long.
Cover Drawing ROSE WYLIE
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