Background to an Art Interloper
Concept: Write about contemporary art
Disclaimer: I have no art background, no art education and no art training. I have six left thumbs and several toes on my right hand. I have had people run away screaming when paired with me in Pictionary (though I can be a half-decent guesser at times). In short, I am the perfect person to write about art.
Early impressions (with dessert)
My earliest impression of art was a primary school trip to the Tate (back when there was only one). Sitting on the floor with a mitt-sized Wagon Wheel in hand eating my lunch in a low light room. A curtain and projection. A monochrome, strobing vision swirling on the ripples of the fabric. I have no idea what the work was but it was interesting enough to distract me from my chocolate-jam marshmallow confection (even for only a few seconds).
I say that ignoring regular holiday visits to Florence (Ciao Firenze!) visiting my dad’s side of the family but Renaissance masters were just wallpaper to me. I always thought the evening ‘passeggiata’ at the Piazzale Michelangelo was a necessary intermission before the gelateria or arcade visit. The naked man in the middle was background (though each subsequent year his donger became more foreground). Art is everywhere and hidden at the same time.

Fighting for contemporary art
To the average (or above/below average) person, contemporary art is completely inaccessible. It is written about it hushed highbrow tones. Where art-speak is dense, impenetrable and often, tedious. When art openings are a mixture of chin-stroking and chardonnay-aroma’d BO. When a blank wall is described as “his best work — a triumph!”. These, and other, reasons are why many people assume contemporary art is nonsense (at best) or a fraud (more commonly).
So why am I fighting for contemporary art? I am the definition of an art interloper. I am one of hidden millions in the margins, an art and culture grazer that feels contemporary art is under-represented in the common discourse (unless we are talking a $110 million Basquiat).

My preference is for abstract and/or conceptual art which is the ultimate in ‘head-scratch’ material. There is an intellectual appeal to entering a space with an artwork and interacting with it especially when you are unsure what it is. There is an inherent tension in that situation where you experience conflicting feelings of aesthetic pleasure and complete confusion. Your mind takes a random walk through irritation, resentment, sadness, recognition and glee. Each person takes their own pathway and owns their experience. What price to experience something unique? Possibly $110 million.
Conceptual and performance art has the power to challenge and change. Tehching Hsieh took a photo in the same uniform and same position every hour for a year. Why would someone do that? It is striking to think that someone would choose to be possessed by a concept that would completely envelop them for a year. I saw this work at the Venice Biennale in May this year though it was completed in the early 80’s.
Entering a room surrounded by over 8,000 similar photographs and 365 punch-in cards was immensely moving. Over time his hair grows, he looks more fatigued and strung out, but also hardens as if he has adapted to his new normal. This form of self-inflicted torture steps you through what is must be like to have your humanity taken away from you and ‘what defines you’ comes into question. He is a free man but by placing the rigour of this task ahead of him he is indirectly speaking about the oppression of being observed. To be in prison when not in prison.

As a Taiwanese artist it must be a commentary of China and how you act in an alien way in an authoritarian society when under surveillance; to pretend to be free when under scrutiny and obligation. Interacting with this work has its own force. You have the choice to not be in a prison of your own making but elsewhere in the world that choice is taken away from you. This work is a thunderbolt with the heft often missing in a polemic or political piece.
There is often an indefinable ‘something’ that you experience when you are confronted by work nearing the summit of greatness. That, I guess, is the purpose of these musings — to define this something.
