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Abstract expressionism puts the art in artifice |
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Written by NEIL GODBOUT
Citizen news editor
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Thursday, 15 May 2008 |
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Young children who master adult skills in music or mathematics or sports receive special attention for their magical abilities. From Mozart to Michelle Wie, history is filled with the accomplishments of gifted youngsters.
As a teenager, Pablo Picasso was already attracting attention. At 14, Picasso painted Man In A Beret, clearly demonstrating his awesome talent. Now compare that with Zane Dancing by the four-year-old Marla Olmstead. Say what you want about abstract art but there's something special about Marla's work.
Or is there?
Last month, Cinema CNC screened My Kid Could Paint That, a documentary about Marla's meteoric rise in the art world, a preschooler selling paintings for tens of thousands of dollars. The bubble burst when 60 Minutes questioned whether Marla was the true artist, suggesting that her father was having a significant input in the finished work.
The documentary leaves the viewer hanging, presenting numerous doubts about the authenticity of Marla as the sole artist of these brilliant works while still noting the young girl's impressive eye for colour and movement.
Artistic scandal is hardly new, particularly when it comes to abstract expressionism. For many people, modern art is the biggest scam going, a con game to elicit funds from those with more cash than brains. When the National Gallery of Canada purchased Barnett Newman's Voice of Fire in 1990 for the bargain price of $1.75 million, the country was outraged, particularly since Newman was an American. Never mind that he had a huge influence on modern Canadian artists, or that he was commissioned by the U.S. government to create Voice of Fire for the U.S. pavilion at Expo '67 in Montreal or that the gallery got the painting at about half the price it was worth on the open market because he asked his wife before he died to make sure the painting ended up in Canada.
It's three stripes on a canvas five metres high and two metres wide.
What the hell is that?
It's modern art.
It speaks to you or it doesn't. The reaction to the colour and texture and contrast is deeply personal. Look at it long enough and you can start talking about style and technique.
In an impromptu hand poll during discussion after the film, most of the viewers at CNC put their hands up when asked if it's important whether Marla actually was the sole creator because of artistic integrity.
Whatever that is.
Art is short for artifice.
Art in any form is simply a contrived representation of a viewpoint, a blatant effort to make the viewer think or feel or react. It is beautiful, constructed manipulation. It begs for your attention and then bends you to its will.
Artists throughout history have had assistants make significant contributions, from mixing paint to applying base colours to creating sketches from rough outlines, while still putting only their marketable names on the completed work. These creations are somehow not frauds but apparently Marla Olmstead is because she received coaching and maybe even a guiding hand from her encouraging father. She clearly has but where is the line between genuine and fake? Where does imitation end and creativity start?
That is the final point about much of modern art.
There are no absolutes. There is no truth or beauty or perfection.
Even colour is up for debate.
When does green become blue?
When does blue stop being blue and start being black?
How does a series of random colours and shapes become art?
It's all in our heads, endlessly echoing behind our eyes, at the speed of thought and emotion.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 15 May 2008 )
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