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Book: Appreciating contemporary art
To ‘get’ contemporary art, you need a certain ‘capacity of mind’
And not everyone seems to have it
What follows here regarding the ‘appreciation of contemporary art’ has nothing whatsoever to do with being clever, or sensitive, or highly educated, or in any way special. It’s just about a certain ‘mental facility’ — a capacity of mind — like being able to enjoy music. For example, I have a number of friends and relatives who find music altogether uninteresting, and can’t be bothered with it in any form. No amount of attempted ‘persuasion’ is ever going to change the way they feel: they just don’t ‘get’ music! And when it comes to contemporary art, there are many people who think in the same terms. But there’s always the chance that, with a slight change in perspective, and a bit of encouragement, they can put aside some old and blinkered ideas, and take on a completely new vision.
If you want to be able to appreciate contemporary art — in other words, to be able enjoy genuinely ‘revelatory’ art (and who wouldn’t?) — you will need to have the ability to connect — through a kind of vicarious yet immediate congruence — with multiple ‘frames of mental reference’ very different from your own. This may sound very complicated, but it’s not. It’s absurdly easy — and comes…
