Charles Saatchi is the “kingmaker” of the art world. Previously he has crowned Tracey Emin, Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst amongst many others, and has now sent his courtiers forth o’er hill and dale in search of new ‘talent’ in conceptual art.
I confess now that I dubiously tuned in to School of Saatchi with the sole intention of finding a mine of evidence from which I could dig out a tonne of gold and heap it up in the face of anyone who says there is value either in modern art or the dearth of the twenty-first century that is the reality TV talent show. I must then concede that the mine was not as rich in said evidence as I expected. Still, Saatchi’s aspiring kings and queens struggled to excavate much of this meaning on which their work is founded, creating somewhat of a quandary.
The judges were slightly more accomplished at this. “Art is an expression of the intention of the artist” according to Kate Bush, head of art galleries at the Barbican, (thereby silencing my remonstrations as I watched builders erect one of the installations in the second episode, while the artists lingered below). Tracey Emin, another panelist, pounced with dominating enthusiasm on anything that looked new and exciting, simultaneously silencing any squeaks from her fellow judges with a sideways glance that threatened to develop into a growl. Presumably, this lust for the new idea comes from the argument that all (or most) things bright and beautiful have already been achieved in other centuries and continents, but Emin came at the brawl against public perception from the other side; already a convert, she didn’t think to look at it from a cynic’s point of view. Art critic Matthew Collings and collector Frank Cohen likewise insisted on the wholly original, though in a more sceptic-friendly manner.
Emin’s understanding is clearly great, however, and though she might be the show’s Simon Cowell, her ability to explicate convincingly the work of the twelve young artists in the second round at least puts the art world’s show above that of the music industry.
The majority of the finalists being art students, they (naturally) resented being asked to define what modern art is. The extent of their outrage suggested the judges might as well have asked a handful of fully qualified doctors to name all the parts of the human body, rather than patronise the group with questions such as, “And why is this film art and not just a film?” Yet once the grumblings and mumblings of frustration had subsided, silence filled the air. Two or three of the twelve then poured convincing arguments into the ether. The rest fumbled with words and shirt sleeves and looked ashamedly at the floor. Surely one of the first steps along the path of conceptual art should be understanding why one is doing what one is doing?
These installations ranged from a film of hundreds of starlings flying up round and down together in a delicate yet definitely undulating flux, while seeming to be in stasis, to two magnets holding one another in the air by way of their magnetic fields – without actually touching. I could see that they were art, the first beautiful and the second conceptually fascinating, but the artists’ inability to explain them gets at the crux of modern art’s problem: it does not have intrinsic characteristics which reveal that it is art. Therefore, we must speak for it, and attempt to express the ideas; these are often by nature more abstract than words know how to articulate, and herein lies the trouble. If the artists can’t explain the meaning, then what are we, the public, to measure our slivers of understanding against?
Perhaps I am missing the point of it all. In the second episode, the group, now whittled down to six, had to install public works of art in Hastings. Two of the three pieces did not work as intended, and as a result the artists seemed to be constructing ideas to fit the haphazard objects rather than eloquent installations to complement the thoughtful conceptions. The judges had few qualms about this. If I am to see their reaction positively I can only suggest that rather than having implicit meanings, installations of this kind are intended as personal exercises in thinking rather than a desire on the artists’ part to portray universal truths.
This inherent uncertainty leads me to another. X Factor hasn’t unearthed The Beatles of the day, so is it likely that Saatchi will pull the previously unnoticed talent which has wandered the dusty side streets of the art world in to the town square? Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn’t. Arguably, though, the intention of School of Saatchi is not to beam a spotlight down on the individual but to garner good press and deeper understanding for the modern art world as a whole.
The British public loves to hate it, but it is the direction in which we are ineluctably headed. Saatchi et al are certainly fostering, if not adoration, much curiosity and thought beyond the commonplace dismissive attitudes, and for this they must be admired.
From Palatinate, issue 713, December 2009
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