Communication

I had a long conversation with a Canadian art teacher who was visiting India last month, on conceptual art and art education now. It is not surprising to me as these kinds of subjects are always being brought up and there may be some truth to any view point, especially from an experienced person's perspective.

“It's very difficult as an art teacher to encourage students to pursue academic success in visual art when the definition of success is to become a 'well known' conceptual artist. While I encourage the students to have a concept and to convey some meaning to communicate, I also teach about masters' works from history, the elements and principles of design and expect a high level of technically skilled art while helping them to develop a personal style. Every authentic art has a strong concept behind it. Yet art should be judged on its own merits, regardless of the materials used, or whether those materials are in fashion at the time the art was created.

Already the emphasis on the conceptual style of art which started some fifty-sixty years ago, is shifting now to the other side in the West now. The 'high skill' concerns of drawing, painting, printmaking and craftsmanship in genral are coming back again and very much in vogue with students at present. A whole other world of artistic endeavor is happening, one that will supplement what we've traditionally defined as the 'fine arts'. So, fashions do come and go, but some historically proven things are timeless. Drawing and painting are still the foundation disciplines of all visual arts and should remain a constant in artistic education in my opinion."

"The trouble with so much emphasis on the conceptual art is that some practitioners, too easily garner fanfare without exercising any perceivable artistic skill and when it comes to conceptual art, especially in the case of performance art, more times than not the emperor is indeed not wearing any clothes. That's not to say we should wish for the death of conceptual art which is not going to go away soon anyway, and it can also co-habit with other forms of art. Because historically there is a reason and relevance for its emergence. Yet most of the shows are still filled with all sorts of conceptual works which are very cost effective, even if they take up very large and valuable spaces in a show. Yet most of them are uninteresting to me. When it's witty, it can be fine, though not as deep as say, any old master's works, to tell you the truth. I just wish there weren't so damn much of conceptual works. There should be a fine balance.”

Finally, what I make out of this conversation is that if any cultural form that is not relevant to people's lives in general, not touching the heart of the viewer and if it's not communicating in anyway and specifically with the human experience, it's not going to stay. So its not the problem of conceptual art. What is the deeper intention and is there clarity of the objective; more over, how effectively and skillfully the the concept is presented; all these matter, even if this can be subjective. After all, art is primarily for communication, right?

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photo: Fort Kochi, India. sebastian varghese©2014