This is a totally fascinating story. A man has defaced a Mark Rothko mural in the name of ‘yellowism’ and claims his act added ‘value’ to the painting. Of course he hasn’t and the guy is an anti-social pest, but his act exposed the difficulty we have as a society where commodity meets creativity.
The man, apparently called Vladimir Umanets, compared his act to Marcel Duchamp, who displayed a signed urinal in 1917. Despite the best efforts of neo-liberal economic apologists, we cannot shake the idea of value being connected to labour and skill. It takes great skill to produce representative art, physical dexterity, not to mention patience and concentration. Representative art was made obsolete by the camera. Artists branched out into impressionism, expressionism etc. But how difficult is it to depict an abstract object in a visual medium?
The man, apparently called Vladimir Umanets, compared his act to Marcel Duchamp, who displayed a signed urinal in 1917. Despite the best efforts of neo-liberal economic apologists, we cannot shake the idea of value being connected to labour and skill. It takes great skill to produce representative art, physical dexterity, not to mention patience and concentration. Representative art was made obsolete by the camera. Artists branched out into impressionism, expressionism etc. But how difficult is it to depict an abstract object in a visual medium?
If art seems less like art more like whatever somebody with the wherewithal says is art (and who decides who that somebody is – it’s a fundamentally undemocratic process) then what is to stop subversions such as these? The answer is, of course, to open up an artistic commons, where cultural artefacts aren’t assigned to individuals, creators and owners, in the way they are now. Why must the value (economic or artistic) of a work of art come necessarily come from artisanal skill and dedication, when it could just be deemed beautiful?