Purdue’s campus has quite a bit of sculpture on display.  Most of it is pretty nice; it dresses the campus up very well, giving it a bit more character and personality.  But I must admit – sculpture is one of those artistic mediums that I don’t fully understand.  Actually, I should probably be a bit more clear.  What I don’t understand is simplistic art.  I appreciate art that shows complexity, that shows how much work and time and effort the artist put into designing and creating it.  I appreciate such art, and I respect and admire the artist for it.  Detailed work takes great personal sacrifice on the part of the artist, and it involves great risk to display it in public, waiting to see if they will love it or hate it.

The thing that gets me is when the intellectual takes a higher place of importance to the visual (or the auditory, in the case of musical or literary works read aloud).  I can’t understand how an artist could possibly be satisfied with his work of art that is so simple in design that it looks as though a small child could have conceived of it.  I realize that the artist probably spent hours trying to decide what shape his work should take so that it could best represent the abstract concept bouncing around in his brain, and I respect that.  I do.  I guess I just feel that good art should be created in such a way as to need no explanation from the artist in order for the general public to understand and appreciate it.

I saw a painting once that made me turn my head various ways trying to figure out what it was, trying to figure out what possessed the artist to create it, trying to understand what, if any, meaning there was behind it.  Someone who knew the artist saw my confusion and proceeded to explain in great detail what the picture was and what the concept was that inspired it.  The sad thing is that I don’t remember the explanation now.  It was simply too complicated and not at all inspirational. 

My philosophy of art is that it should be able to be enjoyed by anyone who experiences it, not just the elite few who think in such convoluted ways as to picture the world from one man’s own twisted mind.  I personally think that art should be relatively reflective of the concepts being portrayed¹.  I also tend to think that the art should be more complicated then a few wires twisted around or several pieces of smooth concrete stacked one on top of another.  It seems to me that if a child, who is only just learning fine motor skills, can create the work, then that work required very little skill on the part of the artist.  It merely required a thought to initiate it, something that anyone can do.

Maybe I’m being elitist in my own way by suggesting that so much of the art that is lauded in our high society is really just a pile of simplistic trash, but I guess I just hold a high standard for what can and should be art.  I like to see art that looks like it took effort to bring into existence, that took mental discipline to manufacture, that took great care and love to detail and clearly represent some abstract concept.

1. Though, to be fair, to the artist the work is probably a very clear depiction of the concept he is portraying visually.[back]

The Indianapolis Star announced this past Tuesday the installation of a new work of public art—an image of an open hand to be displayed at various locations around the city.  The Indianapolis Museum of Art, in conjuction with the Arts Council of Indianapolis, is spear-heading the effort to display the image of universal welcome and openness.  The meaning of the image is intended to be subjective, depending upon the location of the image and the experiences and interpretations of the viewers.  The IMA is also hosting a weblog for local art viewers to discuss their impressions and thoughts on the display.

At first glance I found that I was rather irritated with the exhibit and with the artist.  Here was just another artist who had found a way to carve a living from what was, to me, an overly simplistic work of art.  For art to be of any real value, it should require great sacrifice to create.  Time should be spent on the project, effort and toil and sweat should be expended to craft it into something beautiful, resources should be used up to produce something that will be a genuine contribution to the field.  Also, art should be fairly self-explanatory.  What good is art if no one understands it?

However, I forced myself to step back and re-examine.  The artist created this work in honor of his friend, who died of AIDS.  He did not create art that could not be understood.  If anything he created something with the specific focus of stimulating thought, of sparking the imagination, of spurring people out of their casual reverie and into something more productive.  His intent was to get people up off their mental derrieres and to make them do something with their grey matter besides stir it into mental porridge.  That, in my opinion, is something laudable and something for which I, as a fellow artist, can salute Felix Gonzalez-Torres.  Here is someone who is not content to just let the world pass him by, but instead he steps up to shape the world by his craft.  I, for one, will be very interested to see what sort of response he gets.