There’s an old joke that said one better not go skydiving on Easter Friday because nothing opens on Easter Friday. Which is awfully frustrating for a reborn bachelor looking for something to do and way too much screen time behind his name. Finding a place to go and hang out and explore life for a while on Easter Friday could make its own crusade movie. After consulting various ‘what’s on’ groups and looking for something – anything – to do on Easter Friday morning, I found myself at one of my favourite places to be: a gallery.
I love art, but I’m not one of those pipe-smoking arty-farty types who wear suspenders with their pants and collarless button-up shirts. No one will ever mistake me for a culturally relevant artiste, and I will sure as hell never call myself an artist. An artist is, after all, the greatest of all things. I’ll call myself a writer and a novelist and a photographer, but you won’t get me to call myself an artist if you brimmed me with a pot of Trinchado.
So, there I was in my slightly-too-big overshirt and Levi’s, looking at paintings in this gallery with a hypothetical hundred million Dollars in my back pocket, and I was willing to spend it on something. I felt primarily two emotions: boredom and disgust. There was not a single object in this gallery I’d buy with your money. The bulk of the work — I’d say, about 60% — was derivative. Generic cookie-cutter stuff that I’ve seen a million times before. Now, this is not a case for originality – landscapes have been around since cave drawings. I’m not asking for original – I’m asking you to make me feel something. What can landscapes offer? Space, a sense of place, the glory of a sunrise, the tempest of a storm, the desolation of agrarian poverty, the splendour of the African landscape! Instead, it’s just some oil paint splashed on a canvas delivering Xerox copies of deserted beach scenes or mountain vistas with about as much emotion attached to it as my Logitech mouse. But that’s still okay.
What isn’t okay is the other 40%. Deliberately subversive work meant to shock and disgust. It’s… it’s ugly. Now, looking at my waste basket, I cannot call stuff ‘ugly’ without a pang of hypocrisy. But this stuff is wilfully ugly. Its sole purpose is to shock. To disgust. To make the viewer recoil in horror. Well, job done, I guess. And the artist boast from his haughty tower “I made you feel sick, but at least I made you feel something!”
Yes, quite, but the bar is so low… Getting anyone to feel disgust is probably the easiest thing to do. Even four-year-old boys can make you feel disgusted with their poop jokes. Second lowest on the bar is making someone feel aroused. Inducing a boner is really not all that difficult. And to belabour the point, on Friday evening, I was at a very expensive and trendy bar with a bad sound system and even worse service but an overload of pretence, and I was introduced to Pepper Coyote’s There’s No… no. I’m not even going to justify its existence by saying its title. I’m glad this song evaded me for a decade because it inspired this piece with its sheer vulgarity disguised as humour. I never knew one could compare Kevin Bloody Wilson to anything and ol’ Kev would hold the artistic high ground, but, here we are.
Why did we get so vulgar? Let’s talk about terminology here: Awesome! The dictionary definition reads “extremely impressive or daunting; inspiring awe.” So, what does “awe” mean? “A feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder”. Ah, now we’re onto something. Fear. Wonder. Reverence.
I had that feeling of ‘awesome’ fear, wonder, and reverence a few times in my life. Most notably when I saw the Aachen Cathedral for the first time. That was awe-inspiring in the sense that it was reverential. It made my little atheist heart feel the reverence its builders and architects had for the almighty. In the visual arts, I can cite the time I accidentally stumbled across a Claude Monet in the Johannesburg art gallery. Or; some Goya engravings. In music… I’m a bit of a Philistine, and I’m not going to cite a recital of some baroque classic, but — with a bit of licence — we can bring it home with Sting:
“If I could break down these walls and shout my name at Heaven’s gate
I’d take these hands and I’d destroy the dark machineries of fate
Cathedrals are broken, Heaven’s no longer above
And hellfire’s a promise away, I’d still be saying:
I’m still in love, I’m still in love, I’m still in love, I’m still in love”
Now, there’s a man in reverential awe of both the object of his affection and the overwhelming feelings he has for her. That is simply bloody beautiful is what that is. And it sold about a bajillion copies less than a Wet Ass Pussy.
I’m not against profanity or obscenity. One of the most beautiful books and movies I’ve ever come across is Betty Blue. Both the book and the movie fill me with a sense of wonder and erotic tension that hums through my soul like Sting’s bass guitar strings and has more WAP than Cardi B can ever sing about.
I’m against vulgarity.
And this is where we find ourselves. The world has gone vulgar. Disappointingly, purposefully so, considering the level of ‘art’. But distressingly, unintentionally so in the soul-less derivative works that infiltrate everything from the airwaves to store-front windows to the new altars erected to worship the almighty. Everything has been A/B tested up the wazoo to give the most sanitised, least-offensive result possible, and the bean-counters are smiling all the way because bland is cost-effective.
Except… there is hope out there! Indie-published books now make up over half of Amazon’s top 400 books. In the deep trenches of Spotify, some miracles quietly sing their exquisiteness into the night. The World’s Most Extraordinary Homes prove there is reverence to be found even in residential architecture, and it can even be done on a budget. My school friend Helena Hugo (who probably won’t remember me or recognise me if I bit her in the leg) has an exhibition currently at Strauss & Co. That woman can move the soul with a sheet of newsprint and some sticks of pastels.
There’s still beauty to be found. It’s not dead. Just getting overwhelmed by the soul-less mass-produced bullshit that overwhelms the senses. Under the noise and clutter of content for the crowds, there is still Music For The Masses. You just need to go look for it.
And for those of us who can create – and here I will include myself – it is up to us to fight the creeping mediocrity and deliberate shock tactics and make it incumbent on ourselves to at least try for beauty, reverence and awe in our music, our art, our writing. The world needs it now more than ever.
Cover image: ‘Sugar & Salt II’
by Helena Hugo, 2019
Used without permission, but with reverence and awe.
