Language and the critics

 

The other relationship between art and language, apart from the way in which artists themselves attempt to describe their activity, emanates from the critics and commentators. Reference to the soul and various 'spiritual' or metaphysical concepts in relation to art is as common now as it ever was, but is it as valid? It has become an 'art-form' itself.

 

Art and religion were always close companions, but now as religious belief might be waning, it would seem that language itself is filling the gap. Religion comes with a ready-made set of values that are used as justification for action, even for going to war (patriotism), but such values are notoriously inconsistent and conflicting (e.g. you shall not kill). The values related to art are far less tangible even than such as patriotism , and as a result are far less easy to deal with. It seems that language instead is now being used, more than ever, to confer 'spirituality' on art, This is usually done after the event, especially by professional commentators, but also, in an analytical  fashion by artists themselves, after completion of the work, and not as an a priori 'design tool. So it is difficult to see wherein lies the assumed validity of such 'spirituality', and certainly any claim to a degree of objectivity.

  George Steiner was at least honest in admitting, in  Grammars of Creation, that his aesthetic standards did presume the existence of a diety. How else can the vast output of 'metaphysical' comment attract any objectivity. Perhaps, alternatively we should abandon any such attempts, as John Carey proposes, and displace 'beauty' , or whatever, from the object itself and replace it in our own minds by 'wonder', or whatever. A work of art becomes so because a viewer sees it as such.  This also conforms to the fact that the whole concept of 'art' springs from the mind - no mind, no art.

 

Art is concerned basically with getting our sensual detectors to react, in ways that we do not much understand, generating some emotional response. The most elemental way in which this can be done is by presenting such an explicit image that we cannot avoid responding instinctively - through terror, fear or revulsion, say. At the other end of the responsive spectrum a considerable amount of speculation might be needed to arrive at the artist's intention - or assumed intention for an artist such as Rothko, say. This gives fertile grounds for critical 'imagination'. A topical example is the work of Anish Kapoor, which often presents the viewer with highly original images. But it is reasonable to ask how his experimental exploitation of the laws of physics can then attract such a variety of metaphysical interpretations. Here are a couple of recent examples:

 

 The True Sign of Emptiness

It may be the most valuable insight into Anish Kapoor's work to suggest that the presence of an object can render a space more empty than mere vacancy could ever envisage. This quality of an excessive, engendering emptiness is everywhere visible in his work. It is a process that he associates with the contrary, yet correlated, forces of withdrawal and disclosure, 'drawing in towards a depth that marks and makes a new surface, that keeps open the whole issue of the surface...

 

 And further:

  The curious thing about double mirrors, concave mirrors, when you put them together, is that they don't give you an infinite repeatability . What interests me is that from certain angles and positions there's no image at all in either mirror. I'm very interested in the way they that they seem to reverse, affirm and then negate .

 

 A physicist could probably enlighten this critic! But this is the stuff with which gallery brochures, radio and TV programmes are built.

 

© Frank Evans  2010