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Analysing contemporary art
It’s Just an Unmade Bed: Why Tracey Emin (Amongst Others) Fails as an Artist
Artworks need to tell us something unusual and unexpected, not simply reflect what we already know
The problem in a word: that there are a number of celebrated ‘artists’ out there who are in fact not really creating ‘art’ at all, but instead dishing up stuff which is altogether less interesting. For a start, which part of all the clutter is the ‘art’? And what are we supposed to do with it? Questions like this explain why contemporary art is afflicted by a pervading sense of uncertainty, combined with the very real possibility that audiences — enthusiastic or not — are being sold well short. We’re not talking about people condemning artwork because they ‘don’t much like it’, or ‘don’t understand it’, but rather about a lurking suspicion that much of what is on display is not worth the effort of engaging with it. It’s all form, and no content. And beyond the voluminous interpretive chatter, none of it has any convincing depth. So this is also about confronting the idea that no one can tell the real difference, in artistic terms, between outright nonsense and pure gold.
To repeat: we’re not talking here about mere subjectivity and personal prejudice. Anyone…
