Staff room discussions in schools tend to fall into the broad categories of discussing the weekend, bitching about other members of staff, pondering what lunch will resemble today and moaning about pay/workload/children/parents etc. However, by some kind of cosmic alignment today’s topic actually had some resonance outside the bubble that is education. Today we discussed art.
The ever so subjective question of favourite artists came up. I, perhaps naively, put forward Sophie Calle. Big mistake. Not only did I have to explain who she was and google The Hotel for them, but when I had they all agreed it was basically wank and not ‘proper’ art.
Now I’m pretty thick. I can’t drive, I avoid political debate like the plague for fear of revealing my level of ignorance and without the aid of Word my spelling level is on a par with Ludacris. Seriously, I sometimes have to spell check words during instant messaging. But if there are three things I can sound fairly convincing on they are modern art, psychology and the life of Robert Smith. (Granted the last two aren’t relevant to this.)
The detail that most people overlook when viewing conceptual artists just as Calle is the strict constraints they actually put upon their work. If it was as easy as taking clandestine photographs of strangers and adding a bit of blurb underneath then every Holga-toting GCSE art student in the land would be having their Sunday lunch with Charles and Nigella. The fact is the ‘blub’ underneath is actually reminiscent of an Oulipo essay. (It’s a French literary movement you heathens.) Calle’s work is heady mixture of voyeurism and her own vulnerability. In a society currently obsessed with voyeurism under the guise of social networking even her oldest pieces are still painfully relevant.
Raise your hands if you’ve ever been dumped. Now go look up Douleur Exquise and take care of yourself. Amazing. Every nuance of pain put down on paper to remind you that you are not alone. Do these pieces have a ‘happy ending’? No. But they get shorter as Calle’s pain dissipates. Time heals, things get easier, and answers are found. Not for every question but enough for her and you to move on.
This is not to say that all conceptual art is instantly validated by its own existence. Like I said, anything to do with art is 100% subjective. I happen to think for example that Damien Hurst is a bit of a pretentious cock. But lovely Sophie engages with the things that are important to me; love, loss, definitions of beauty, stalking of strangers. And she does it in a way that connects and moves me. So recognise. Or don’t. It’s up to you.
WORDS BY KATIE HICKMOTT
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