Israel Star Chronicle

the-unnamable:

I went to a used book sale recently and scored, for 50 cents, a tome featuring 75 years of writing from ARTnews magazine. My relationship with past masterpieces had so far been shaped mainly by books on artists and art movements written retrospectively and works, strategically placed according to their style and “status,” displayed against the pristine white wall of galleries. When I looked at a Brancusi in a dimly lit room flanked by a pair of security guards, under the weight of the awareness of the extensive influence his art has had on later sculptors, the artwork became an idol, shrouded in myth. Because these artworks appeared to me as idols and icons, I took them seriously and attributed eternal qualities to them, as one would to religion.

But given a religion, even one that is dominant today, a historical survey can trace its emergence and popularization in society. Likewise, artists and artworks emerged at a certain point in history in a certain type of society and, needless to say, wasn’t always so revered or even accepted. The practice of Christianity was outlawed in its early days, forcing followers to relegate religious art to secret catacombs. Works by M. Duchamp and other Cubists shown at the Armory Show were derided by the public and condemned as “disquieting perpetrations of the art criminals.” Reading these ARTnews articles, which provide a record of the art world as it unfolded in history, I’m reminded that major movements were once trends, art masters once art criminals; that artists are humans too and face struggles and rejection like all the rest of us.

I once spent weeks researching and writing about Malevich’s Black Square, in the end nearly going crazy. Today I came across an article titled “Bolshivism Balks at Bolshevist Art: A cube on Top of a Pile of Machinery, Representing Lenin, Is Rejected by Petrograd Judges.” I literally laughed out loud when I read this. It’s horrible to find humour in his rejection, but representing Lenin with a cube is just so Malevich, it’s laughable. Lots of other stories from this collection are also sufficiently infused with humour, an ingredient often lacking in writings on art. This one is so hilarious I have to share it with you:

Brancusi an Artist

December 8, 1928

Brancusi has at last received the accolade and is now an artist. By decision of the court the sculptures which were refused as works of art by the New York customs authorities and taxed as metal are to be admitted without charge as art…

Only a few years ago the “modernists” were greatly in the minority and their work met with abuse from all sides. They were condemned by “right thinking people” and their existence was deplored as a sign of decadence and chaos. Some of the same people are now ardent advocates of moderns; others, whose opinions may not have changed, are too cautious to oppose themselves to an obviously successful movement; only a few, and most of these the lesser men whose only hope for notice is public suicide still hurl invective against contemporary art…