Art for art's sake

I cannot say I'm a big art fan. But I'm a fan of the arts. Which means from time to time I trundle along to the theatre, the odd ballet and last Sunday, art exhibition (let's not say anything about the poetry reading in Stroud, and the woman reading the poem about shaving her armpits....)

It was an interesting setting, being a disused waterside warehouse in south Rotterdam. The organisers had rigged up an impromptu cafe on the ground floor, and very good its offerings looked too - lots of homemade stuff, I noticed, as we queued for tickets. The queuing crowd was interesting too - not the alternative Rotterdam set that I had imagined would attend such a venue (well maybe midday was a bit early for them), but a rather smartly dressed elderly crowd. Some of the organisers staff were trying for 'alternative' by burning pallets for warmth outside on the quay, to cultivate a pseudo NY street living image. Should have popped inside to the caff instead!

Anyway back to the exhibition. We started on the top 2 floors, where there was an exhibition called 'China Expo'. And do you know what? It was really good. Thought provoking, touching your emotions, original. I drifted between exhibits, occasionally sharing thoughts with my kids (who had persuaded me along actually).

This is why I enjoy art - and poetry. I may not always understand it, but it can produce an emotional response from a part of my brain that I suspect isn't used that much. A wire structure slowly spun in a corner, casting the shadow of two old men locked together in an interminable lively discussion. I loved a bizarre papier mache construct called 'The Pleasure Garden' by Couzijn van Leeuwen (courtesy Galerie Wit if you're interested) and many other little moments of surprise and delight.

Drop down to the next 3 floors and you are in the Art Fair proper. And Boy, don't you notice the difference. As we studied some drawings, my son Charlie remarked that perhaps he should sell some of his drawings, (Charlie being something of an accomplished cartoonist, a fact that only his friends and family know about him) - to which I instantly replied 'Yes you probably could Charlie - but you draw for your own enjoyment, not because you have to'. 
And I wonder how much this essential, differentiating driver, formulates an artists work. because we scooted through these next 3 floors of (in the main) soulless, pretentious crap. I began to understand the crowd in the queue. They had come to spend their savings on some objet that could fill their well-heeled Kralinge residences and that their neighbours wouldn't have. Well there were plenty of opportunities for that - probably their neighbours (if they had any sense) wouldn't have been seen dead with half of that waste of creative talent.
I left somewhat dejected, wondering if this need to sell doesn't somehow corrupt the work of the artist or writer. Write /paint /draw for yourself when the force is with you, and it's a pure expression of creative force. Feel that you have to, and all of a sudden....it's very different. Your soul isn't necessarily in it - head is dictating to the heart. You need the money! The consequence of this was there for all to see at the 'art' fair.

Writers like Joseph Conrad (and probably many others) had long periods of writers block. This is because the pressure of having to produce was just too much for them. It didn't, ultimately, stop him from producing some wonderful novels. Vikas Swarup wrote his little gem of a novel 'Q&A' (better known as Slumdog Millionaire) when he was an Indian diplomat
in London. When asked whether he would now leave his day job to concentrate on writing, he replied he wouldn't - that he would rather write when he didn't have to write, because that way he could enjoy it.
I wonder, truly, how many of these exhibiting artists last Sunday, can truly say they enjoy the work they had produced for sale. And how many of them recall the Hans Christian Andersson tale for the ages 'The Emperor's new clothes'.