Is Conceptual Art Exhausted ?

These reflections were prompted by going to see the exhibition Glamourie in Leeds, where my cousin Harry Meadley is among artists showing their work: http://www.glamourie.co.uk/

I would like to preface these remarks with a piece of rhyme written by me some time ago, which may be borne in mind through everything that follows. It's called Aesthetics Solved.


There are only two rules in aesthetics -
The rest are just imposture & prosthetics.
The first concerns the spectator
Which is, Beauty is in the eye of the beholder:
The second concerns the doer -
Which is (there was never one truer)
There's more than one way to skin a cat -
And that, my dear Doctor, is that.


Many people are suspicious and dismissive of conceptual art. "Why can't they paint proper paintings ?" is a line often taken. "Proper landscapes like Hockney is doing at the moment or proper portraits like Lucian Freud. They do this stuff because they can't draw !" Many people think conceptual art is a con, & at best they are just having their leg pulled by someone they would refuse the title 'Artist' to. Others think that although conceptual art had something going for it in its early days in the hands of its pioneers, Duchamp especially, it's now played out, its practitioners just repeating the same old formulas.

No doubt most conceptual art isn't very good, but in this it only resembles everything else, most of everything isn't very good: most thrillers, most television programmes, most pop music, most poetry, most plays, most figurative art, most self-help books and so on.

I would investigate this question of is conceptual art exhausted by means of analogies. If someone painted a near-perfect Impressionist landscape (that style is about 150 years old), or a picture in the pure cubist style (100 years old), my reaction for one would be "Very nice -but what's the point ?" Similarly if a jazz musician insisted on composing in the Be Bop style (70 years old). Is conceptual art like this ?

There is another analogy though. Let us say that conceptual art starts with Duchamp's Fountain in 1917. It is thus about 100 years old. Figurative art in its modern sense began in the first half of the Fifteenth century in Italy & the Netherlands. For convenience, we could pinpoint Masaccio's The Holy Trinity (c. 1427) in Santa Maria Novella in Florence & van Eyck's The Arnolfini Wedding (1434) in the National gallery in London as prime examples of the new style. 100 years later takes us to Cranach, Hans Holbein, Durer, Breugel the Elder, Michelangelo, Titian, Giorgione to name but a few of the titans of that time. Can I seriously say that figurative art as a style was exhausted by then ? Rembrandt, Velazquez, David, Goya to name only four Masters lie as yet unknown & hidden in the future, beyond this 100 year deadline.

To take another analogy, is Blues exhausted as a form ? One starting point for Blues as a recorded form we can say Bessie Smith in 1923, or for Delta Blues, Charlie Patton in 1929. Some would argue that Blues is played out. I however think that it has life left in it.

Similarly, is Philosophy exhausted ? It started, according to tradition, in 585 BCE with the work of Thales of Miletus. That's a long time ago. Despite this, as far as I am concerned, it is most definitely not exhausted, it is still going strong.

I can see no reason that a style or method of approach is limited definitely to 100 years or thereabouts of life. If conceptual art as a style has the vigour that figurative art has already demonstrated, then it is by no means exhausted.

God is a Fiction

Faith is just a fancy name for opinion.

If I have faith in an opinion that comes from a source external to myself, it's still my opinion, I'm still responsible for it.

The term faith gives opinion a spurious air of sanctity, of mystery.

When I say I've got faith, I mean I've got opinions for which there is no evidence to evaluate their validity.

To say I have faith so proudly is almost as if I am celebrating having no evidence for my opinion, as if that somehow elevates my opinion out of the dirty world of mundane facts.

There follow some questions for Christians about the nature of their God & their religion. If there are satisfactory Christian answers to these questions, I've never heard them. It's to do with / it's an issue of my faith is not a sufficient answer to any of these.

1. Does God intervene in His Creation or not ?

If He doesn't, what is the point of praying to Him for intervention ?

Is He responsible for unwelcome & destructive interventions like earthquakes & other natural disasters ?

What about prayers which are not answered ? Is that God refusing ?


2. When I die, will I go straight to Heaven or Hell ? or - will I lie in the ground until the Last Judgement, & my destination be decided then ?

As far as I can see, Christians believe both at the same time, & both can't be true at the same time.

Or - Heaven, Hell & the Last Judgement are figurative, in which case - what's the point of them ?


3. If the Devil exists, why does God permit him to continue ?

If God cannot do anything about the Devil, then He is not omnipotent.

If God could could do something about him, but chooses not to - why ?


Looked at from a non-Christian perspective, the Devil - or Satan if you prefer - is necessary & indispensable for 2 reasons.

First, because God is a fiction. & any successful fiction requires an antagonist, its disruptor-figure, its supreme opponent e.g. Loki, Sir Kay, Moriarty. Note that archenemy is a term used familiarly in talking about stories, & is also, when capitalised, - Archenemy - a synonym for the Devil.

Second, because the Devil is a personification of something we know from experience to be true, that evil is a real force in the world & in human affairs. You only need to look around you, keep up with the news, & study history to confirm that e.g. events in the world in the 1930s & '40s.

Why Ed Miliband Should Resign Immediately

I write this as a long-term Labour supporter & voter, & as a friend of the Party who wants to see it succeed.

I would say to people who support Ed Miliband, don't confuse loyalty to the Party with loyalty to its current leader, they are not the same thing. Ed M was elected leader on 25th September, 2010, & this is quite long enough to get the measure of him in that role. He is useless. Many Labour supporters I speak to think he is rubbish. He is unable to galvanise his own core support: never mind reach out to trade unionists, disillusioned LibDems, the Occupy people, laid-off public sector workers, & other opponents of the Coalition who don't know where to go [thanks to @fauxpaschick for this thought.] There's a vast reservoir of anti-Coalition sentiment in the UK right now; Ed M is unable to tap it.

I grant you that the state of the Labour Party is not entirely Ed M's fault. The Party is still in shock, paralyzed after Tony Blair took it to places it never thought it would go, especially involvement in the invasion of Iraq. Too close a similarity to Tony Blair is a reason for suspicion of David Miliband within the Party. Another source of its paralysis is the trauma of the long economic boom of the Noughties turning to shit in their hands.

The Labour Party still doesn't know what it is or what it wants to do post-Blair & Brown, & Ed M & his team have so far been unable to help it with either of these questions.

At the moment, the Labour Party is treading the road of failure, led by pygmies. It remains to be seen whether it can pull itself together & get on a better road.

It doesn't matter whether in private life Ed M is a nice guy - a claim that was often advanced for Gordon Brown. It doesn't matter if his heart is in the right place - which, judging by his Conference speech during which he gave benefit claimants a thorough kicking, I doubt [for more on this, see my post of 1st October, 2011]. What matters is - is he an effective politician ? & the answer to that is - no. Ed M is a professional politician to his fingertips, but he is not an effective one.

In a democratic system, it doesn't matter how wonderful your ideas or personality are if you can't win a majority. Only if you get elected into power will you have a chance to implement your policies & maybe make a bit of difference to people's lives.

Ed M will never lead the Labour Party to getting a majority at a General Election. You may disagree with me about this. Time will tell which of us is right.

We should learn from the ruthlessness of the Tories with regard to their leaders & ditch Ed before it is too late & the next Election is lost.


Addendum: I had a text conversation with my friend Stu about this post. I said to him: "Labour I think are sleepwalking to defeat, & letting the Tories run riot in the meantime." To which Stu responded: "I think they can't really be bothered to take on running the country again. It's the only reason I can think of, why they're so lacklustre about it."

I realise that the system for deposing a current Labour leader & electing a new one is complex & difficult. But none of that was a problem when they were crowning Gordon Brown. Where there's a will, there's a way.