Oblique Art

Contemporary art is often criticized for being extravagant, farfetched or nonsensical. You might think of the paintings and movies of David Lynch, sculptures of Miquel Barceló or even the banana (Comedian) of Maurizio Cattelan. They are definitely strange and hard to interpret, and in Cattelan’s case, give the finger to Art as an institutional practice. I have no problems with this kind of art. I don’t think the artist owes me any meaning. Even if the artwork seems straightforward, it is still too easy to misinterpret. My sculpting tutor made a sculpture of an anorexic girl with a VERY visible vagina and still, people keep thinking it’s a male…

However, I do have a problem with contemporary artists’ lack of courage. I keep seeing (and hearing!) a lot of artworks that are not too abstract but too vague. As if the artists struggled to accumulate the necessary conviction to breathe something of themselves into the work. This obliqueness of art makes me so frustrated. It feels like the artist hides behind the foggy landscape of the present where meaning is either too atomic to be interpreted by anyone but the artist or too high-level for anyone to hold all its significance at once. It seems to me that oblique art is neither, but an epitaph of the artist’s cowardice.

Last week I went to a concert to listen to a violin concerto composed by a friend of mine. I’ve never had the chance to listen to any of his works. I had high expectations because of the praise I had heard about him and the overall aura of his very likable presence.

(He is not aware of this blog and I don’t think he’ll ever read this. E, if you are, I’m sorry.)

Then I heard the same obliqueness in his concerto.

Before the concert there was a pamphlet with a long exposition about the composition. I found it very odd because, of all art forms, music is the one that requires the least amount of exposition. Of course it’s not that easy to tell a story just with music, but it opens such a direct channel with the listener that the story does not need to be told for music to bloom into emotions.

Then it started. For a minute or two, the violin didn’t even make any sound. We waited awkwardly, watching the violinist sway and tremble while the contrabasses in the orchestra smirked at each other. After a time that felt like an eternity, we heard a few notes from the violin. It was a good melody! Alas, it didn’t last long. Then the orchestra started to hum a very ambient sound. Everything sounded like the white noise tracks I listen to while I read. This all lasted for almost 45 minutes; here and there, the orchestra abruptly made sharp noises which felt like jumpscares. At one moment, I opened my notes app and wrote “are we in a David Lynch movie?” to show my wife. The out-of-placeness of everything definitely felt like a David Lynch movie, but unfortunately not like watching one, but being trapped in one.