Paranoid Modernism

Colleagues in paranoia, pen and wash, January 2010


I have just finished reading Paranoid Modernism by David Trotter (Oxford University Press, 2001), something I have intended to do since it was first published. I highly recommend the book, it sheds light on so many issues, including how charisma came to be so much more significant than expertise in the battle for cultural capital.

Ambitious art critics are as desperate as artists in the hunt for renown, so there is plenty of scope for paranoid collusion between the critical establishment and those engaged in "new" production, whereby the righteous claims of both to superiority is only strengthened by the presumption of hostility. Given that a claim to avant-garde status is innately exclusive, it has always puzzled me how the establishment of the 'cult of the new' stresses the virtue of its democratic approach. In reality, disdain of the viewer's inferior sensibilities, intellect, attitudes or expectations, which must be endlessly challenged, is the main if not only signifier as to what belongs within its realm and what does not. Anything that does not is dismissed with haughty contempt as either reactionary or amateur - or populist, indeed!

A sadness about the paranoid, from what I have understood, is the initial self doubt about being a "man of qualities" capable of accumulating cultural capital. I imagine somebody who has ambition to be a "somebody", to stand out from the mass, monolithically erect (even if female!), but brooding under a fear of inadequacy. The paranoid structure is to turn this insecurity outwards by means of perceived persecution and to believe the persecution signifies the specialness of its victim. It is a symmetrical and stable structure which enables the professional, with whom paranoia is especially associated, to flourish in the arrogant belief that he/she has a uniqueness more valuable to society than that conveyed by any "common" professional standards (including possibly the law). I hope I have explained it well enough - obviously the book has to be read to appreciate the proposition David Trotter makes and to digest its full texture and scope.

I suspect the seeds for paranoia within the practice of the visual arts (Trotter refers mostly to literature) were sown in the studios of Paris in the 19th Century, with the collapse of the Academy's heirarchy. For, surely, in spite of all modernism's claims to be anti-authority, it is that very cultural capital (reputation, respect, good income, influence) once assured by the Academy heirarchy which remains the primary goal of paranoid ambition. Outside the Academy, artists were, after all, only skilled tradesmen. To earn a reputation and a living that matched the rejected but desired status of academicians meant engaging with enterprise far beyond the development of one's expertise as an artist. It meant building a new heirarchy, fought over between colleagues, for which the qualification to succeed depended on invention, on self-belief and the will to denounce others, on the ability to generate authority through propaganda as much as quality of output - a good breeding ground for paranoids.

In fact it is hard to imagine how, nowadays, any professionally trained but unsuccessful artist finds the strength to persist without a touch of paranoia, myself included: though I can think of some, like the great Eric Peskett, for example, who continued in homage to life and to art itself, as it were, in pursuit of knowledge and revelation for its own sake, and indifferent to lack of recognition.

I am wondering wether the main thrust of modernism emigrated from Paris, along with Duchamp, because the French actually appreciated the visual arts enough to resist the total eclipse of aesthetic quality as signifier of creative value: perhaps they loved life too much to act as host to modernism's inherent hostilities: or perhaps, as the cultural elite of the avant-garde might say, they were just not democratic enough in their outlook - after all the word 'democracy' seems to be used by some people these days as just another word for capitalism, as, along the same lines, art is handled as just another investment. But this is probably a sign of paranoia on my part.

Portrait of Federico da Montefeltro, by Pedro Berruguete, c1476-77 (detail)









It was a great pleasure to have another chance to view Robert Hughes' The Mona Lisa Curse on More 4 last night (5.12.09). What a brilliantly produced film: a visual feast and compelling in its intensity. Robert Hughes with his wonderful profile reminded me of the portraits and legend of the condotierre Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, that great warrior of the Renaissance. Of course in the Renaissance, patronage of the arts was as much about power, prestige, influence, egotism and narcissism as it is now, but then, at least, there was also a passion for the qualities art can embody in its material self. Artists may have been considered mere artisans but they were expected to deliver great works of art. Nowadays the ability to perform as a celebrity personality is enough to win patronage.

How one longs for the art establishment to wake up and realise its misuse of power, wealth and influence is not just a scandal but will also one day come to seem totally absurd. You would have thought the sham would already have been acknowledged, given the discredit that has befallen its patrons in the finance sector, but, alas, I think it will be a long time yet before this Titanic hits its iceburg - the collusion of state art and commercial interest will propell it forwards far into the wintry night.

Now that the issue of the legality of the Iraq invasion is back in the news big time, it still amazes me how people can contemplate with such equanamity the staggering loss of life and disruption to the infrastructure of society that the Iraqi people have suffered. I think of all the people who have lost relatives and friends, who have lived in fear all these years, who have lost their businesses, their homes, their jobs or who have had to flee to live as refugees in other countries - it is no justification to my way of thinking that under Sadam Hussein things were so bad - does that make it all right to be equally destructive? Are some people's conscience so easy over all this simply because they can't imagine such devastation happening to their own lives, or is it just that they can't think of other nationalities as deserving of compassion?

Horace Blue, Norwich

Pregnant Woman with Bird on Head, terracotta, 2009

I will be showing some work in the Christmas Show at Horace Blue Gallery, Norwich. The show opens on 28th November 2009, 10.00 a.m. http://www.horaceblue.com/

Keep Walking

"Keep Walking!", ink and wash, 2009

"Traveller, there is no path, Paths are made by walking". Antonio Machado



"Nowadays few subscribe to the silly distinction between mental activity and brain activity, as if airy-fairy thoughts were something that floated free, beamed in from Planet Zog. Everything that happens to you, everything you are thinking, has some kind of physical basis rooted in your physical brain. ... Although we are born with pretty much all the brain cells we will ever have, it is the growth of the connections after birth which accounts for the growth of our brains. Even into old age, one's brain remains 'plastic': that is to say, it is constantly dynamic, it is constantly evolving and changing, mirroring the connections that are created by your experiences and what you do." Susan Greenfield, Darwin College Lectures, 2001

Quandry

Looking back at the few entries for 2009, I realise what a strange and unproductive year it has been! I have managed to work on a small scale only, creating terracotta figurines like the one illustrated - many with birds, as the great consolation in this dismal year has been the number of birds coming to feeders hung from the ancient apple tree in my garden. The sparrows come in a great flock, about thirty at least sometimes. They are so busy getting on with the task of feeding and chirp away amongst themselves - it uplifts the spirits and sustains the soul! It is a small but significant daily event, and I have been happy to pay homage to such simple pleasures offered by the natural world.


Besides which, small size can still have breadth of scale and expression, perhaps sometimes more successfully achieved because the material itself is so directly manipulated.

I have participated in quite a lot of shows over the year so far, though I don't think exhibiting at the moment really justifies the great deal of precious time and energy involved. It isn't just a matter of poor sales, though I was quite delighted to hear the most straightfoward expression regarding the value of art the other day - if it doesn't sell, it's rubbish! That person definitely had no doubts about the meaning of art!

The problem with the commodification of art is that it is so often not the artefact in itself which is appreciated but what it achieves in terms of signifiers - fame, status, prestige, life-style and so on. Preferably, as commodity, the art object should communicate its signifiers pretty spontaneously to the potential customer without distracting attention towards any individual qualities it may or may not possess of itself. In other words it needs to be recognisable as a brand. The sculptor, Eric Peskitt, considered that an artefact, whatever the input of the artist, only became art once it engaged and sustained the contemplative gaze of the viewer who then valued it as an art object. But has the commodifying market replaced the viewer as collaborator and patron?

Artists who offer the public opportunity to take part in the action, as with Gormley's 4th Plinth project, or Balka's Turbine Hall installation at Tate Modern - where you can be filmed experiencing the 'terror of darkness' - are creating mass participatory events which do engage viewers on a scale that ticks all the boxes for a democratic provision of cultural experience, but to my way of thinking, these events are closer to theatre than to the traditional practices of painting, drawing, printmaking and sculpture which are defined by the manipulation of tangible material to create form. The problem is that the viewer's engagement with the products of such activity is not productive in terms of the tick box culture of cultural administration.

In the 1960s, the art establishment hype was that 'art is dead', which I dismissed then as a fantastical iconoclastic dogma of modernism - something along the lines of radical Utopianisms such as 'the end of history'. Painting, sculpting, drawing - these are, I thought, natural to the range of expression as music, writing, theatre, dance. All art forms articulate by means of a unique language of their own, and all thereby make their own valid contribution to a vibrant society. And indeed 'Art' has continued to thrive, with ever-increasing state and corporate patronage, museums, galleries, art fairs and even university departments dedicated to its study!
On the other hand, the place in society is not really so great for the traditional visual art practices. The general critical attitude seems to be that these are only valid when they result in products which 'challenge boundaries'. A good artist is always challenging boundaries but not in terms of the neat contextual formulas that the academics like to read into art practice.

And what of the future? Given that paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures are costly to produce in terms of materials and effort, with years of experience required to develop and hone language and content; given that significant art objects demand to be viewed and contemplated over time in a one to one silent exchange that cuts against the veneer of immediacy characteristic of contemporary times; given that traditional art forms are actual in substance, somehow too humanly flawed in that tangible but inwardly received sense, not glossy and distanced like photography and screen - then it is probably true that the 1960's hype was accurate after all, not because of a lack of makers but because society no longer has enough need for the kind of creative engagement traditional arts require of the viewer. All the more reason to make very small sculptures that require minimum storage space!

Mandell's Gallery, Norwich

Mandell's Gallery, Elm Hill, Norwich
I am showing some sculptures in the forthcoming John Kiki exhibition from 15th October to 14th November, 10.00 -17.00 hrs. www.mandellsgallery.co.uk.