THE ART OF THE DIARY

The situation in the Middle East and round the world moves on apace. Many commentators and pundits have given their views, and various networks have provided us with statistics and polls indicating the feeling of many different groups of people. On the whole, the general consensus is that this latest fiasco created by Messrs Trump and Netanyahu is very bad for business, quite apart from being appalling for the general welfare of humanity and the planet.  I will therefore not dwell on the horrors of Trump and company.

On a cultural note, I went yesterday the the Tate Modern to view the exhibition Tracey Emin: A Second Life. The online headline for the exhibition  is “Step into the tender, confessional world of Tracey Emin”. It goes on:

“This landmark exhibition traces 40 years of Emin’s groundbreaking practice, showcasing career-defining sensations alongside works never exhibited before. Through painting, video, textiles, neons, writing, sculpture, and installation, Emin continues to challenge boundaries, using the female body as a powerful tool to explore passion, pain, and healing.
Dame Tracey Emin is one of the most important contemporary artists of her generation”. 

I am afraid I came away feeling disappointed. I did not think the works on display offered anything other than pain. There was only one drawing which I thought was worthy of being called a drawing. The Textual displays were colourful and were rather like large examples of samplers one sees on Flog It or the Antiques Roadshow.  I felt there was more obsession than passion but I am sure this exhibition of venting is certainly a healing process. I do not mean to disparage her work. Anyone who can achieve what she has achieved in the world of Art is certainly worthy of notice. It’s just that on this day I didn’t get it. Appreciation of any artistic work is extremely subjective and there are no absolutes to understanding. Once published, each work stands alone and either reaches into the mind of the viewer/reader or it does not. I confess on this occasion the works did not. 

Artistic achievement is a very difficult process. The life of an artist is a full on commitment to a vision and a total dedication to the processes of making work. In addition, making work that communicates the artist’s vision and ideas to another, is extremely difficult. No two viewers or readers will see the same vision or interpret a work exactly as the artist intended, or indeed if the artist intended anything at all. It is a miracle that a single piece of work can be lauded by a multiplicity of reader/viewers at all. It is not so much a question of taste as it is mental connection. The skill of the artist in making a piece of work that connects with a number of different people is what always shines through. Continuously creating works that shine through over a period of time is even rarer. Indeed it may even take a great deal of time before the work shines at all. Some artist have only ever produced one work that does. Therein lies the difficulty for the artist. To have the dedication and obsession to continue making work regardless of appreciation or understanding requires a fortitude few of us have. There are the makers and craftspersons, and there are people of genius, but all of it is hard work. Some artist’s, a fortunate few, make work that somehow strikes a particular chord and it rides on the crest of a wave. 

That is, of course, my point of view. There are a number of explanations and theories about what makes art. There are as many views as there are people. Indeed, one has to ask oneself, just what is it that makes “great art”?  Certainly there are a number or works in the world that have acquired a following and are thought  to be the pinnacle of artistic achievement. They are highly prized and valued. Why that is, is a bit of a mystery. The answer is surely not “because it is". So much of what we do and think appears to be arrived at, and begin from, some arbitrary decision. Much depends on our acquired knowledge, personal experience and powers of observation. For some people a thought process is engaged.

To quote a follower of Goethe, one must remember that “thinking…is no more and no less an organ of perception than the eye or ear. Just as the eye perceives colours and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas.” Rudolf Steiner (1883), Goethean Science, GA1.

Thus we can perceive art in the smallest of objects and in effect ‘read’ the piece into our thinking. As an example, here is picture of a cork. 

Just an ordinary cork from a wine bottle. I deduce it is from a wine bottle by the tint of red at one of the ends of the cork. Also, there is a printed sign on the side of the cork, L’AIR DE RIEN. It is, one would guess the name of the wine. It must be a red wine, although there is barely a hint of wine coming from the cork if I smell it, but I believe it is there, although that might be auto-suggestion because it is, after all, a cork from a bottle. Usually the name of the wine is printed on the cork along with Mis en bouteille au chateau. In this instance we only have a name, but one which  conjures up all sorts of thoughts.  The air de rien translates as the air of nothing. Or ‘it doesn’t look like anything’. The French phrase is usually applied to something that appears to be nothing but may indeed be much.  “Ca a l’air de rien”. It is also a pun in that it could be referring to the R of Rien. The letter R in French is pronounced ‘air’. As to the cork itself, I could not say which country it came from. I presume the bottle from which it came was a French bottle of wine and the writing is French. According to wikipedia:

Most cork used in French bottles of wine comes from the bark of cork oak trees, primarily sourced from Portugal, which is the largest producer of cork, followed by Spain and Italy. These countries are part of the Mediterranean region where cork oak trees thrive.
 
This little object then has quite a history. Most likely it began its life in a Portuguese oak orchard and made its way to somewhere in France. It was purchased at some point by a wine maker with an interesting sense of humour and who is proud of his wine. He gives it a label suggesting it looks like nothing, but indicates that it becomes so much more in the tasting. One must also remember that the making of wine is a form of art.

So observation and thinking go hand in hand and, if one is of reasonably sound mind, one can make decisions by bringing  together all our knowledge both learned and acquired. It is not always easy to do this in the heat of the moment. To remain rational, thought provoking and considering, requires a calm, almost meditative spirit, is not easy in the world today. The pull and distraction of the world’s current insanity is not really conducive to visiting the Tate Modern, or indeed, an exhibition working through so much pain in what is in effect the diary of a person’s life. To be honest, I rather felt that Tracey, like Gwendolyn Fairfax from the Importance of Being Earnest, might remark. “I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.”