“I make a distinction between “contemporary art” and “serious contemporary art,” a distinction that I think has become much more pronounced and visible since the beginning of the 80s. In other words, I think a new kind of art has emerged since the 70s, a kind that is easier to appreciate, more like entertainment, more attached to media attitudes. The new contemporary art has by now become the dominant form. Its much closer to entertainment and depends on production value and on spectacle in a way that serious art never did before….I think that was something that artists both had and hadnt wanted for a long time previously. They, we, had a phobia about it, a fear that we would be reduced to celebrity status rather than being taken seriously. At the same time, there was a secret longing for celebrity. This intense ambivalence seems like a permanent aspect of the artistic personality. Until Warhol, artists managed that ambivalence by adhering to traditional avant-garde personae. They still had a connection to the idea that serious art, whether it was music or literature or visual art, didnt need to be celebrated in the same way as entertainment and popular art were, and there should be a divide between them, the distinction Greenberg talked about between avant-garde and kitsch. But there was a generation who were younger than I who didnt feel that way. Warhol was their mentor, their guru. He gave the green light for not being worried about those things anymore and, in fact, for being against being worried about them.” Jeff Wall
Posted on: Mon, 03 Nov 2014 13:17:45 +0000
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