Making a ‘Spectacle’ of art

Following an incident at a San Francisco gallery where visitors took a pair of ordinary spectacles to be an installation, we glean insights from city art connoisseurs about the idea of abstract art.

What is art ’ — that’s one question that has befuddled many since time immemorial. What might seem like a random splash of colours or a lump of clay to one could well be an astonishing piece of art to another, fetching millions. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art was witness to a curious incident recently. When a group of visitors stumbled upon a pair of glasses lying on the floor of the museum, they thought they were looking at a piece of post-modern art. And quite taken in by the ‘piece’, they started to click photos and interpret its meaning and so on. What they didn’t know was that it was a prank played by a 17-year old who wanted to see how people react to what they see in art galleries. He wanted to see how people try to artistically interpret anything if it’s in the confines of an art gallery. Closer home, the incident saw varied responses from within the art fraternity. While some feel it was a much-needed jolt to the art industry, there are others who don’t appear to have taken too kindly to the mockery it has made of real art.

Art curator and owner of Tao Art Gallery, Kalpana Shah says, “It’s very good that this boy showed this shocking fact to shake up the art world and show them the direction they are headed towards. Even I have felt sometimes that very nonsensical things are put up in galleries and museums and then people attempt to conceptualise them as art,” she says. Art curator Penny Patel, however, sees the prank as a sign of disrespect. “I’m surprised that people in one of the most culturally forward cities in the US can be so ignorant. If one visitor thought it was a piece of art, everyone assumed it is. Art for many is subjective, you may love it, you may hate it, no one is forcing you to take an installation or a painting home if you don’t like it. But at least respect the artist. I wonder how the kid got away with it. It’s a bit of a mockery staged in such a prestigious venue. People can’t take such liberties and get away with it. It’s disrespecting the true artists and generations of geniuses who have put up their w rk there,” she says.

Reiterating Penny’s opinion is contemporary artist G.R. Iranna who calls it “insulting” and “wrong”. “An artist has certain sentiments associated with a piece of work and someone can’t divert the attention from the artwork to a prank. Visitors did not have any idea who kept the specs there and they assumed it was a part of the exhibit. Maybe it generated the same interest as the other art works and they mistook it to be a part of the exhibition,” he says.

From artist Tracey Emin’s installation of an unmade bed that was one of the prime exhibits at the Royal Academy of Arts, London to Marcel Duchamp’s iconic urinal installation titled Fountain, and Damien Hirst’s famous skull embedded with diamonds, there have been varied manifestations of art time and again. Art critic Alka Raghuvanshi recalls a few exhibitions that were ‘weird’ but went on to receive some major accolades across the globe. “In the mid 90’s I remember some artist had exhibited a pair of wedding rings after her divorce and the exhibit had won a major award in England. I think these days the word ‘installation’ is highly abused. An installation is a votive piece of art and has a certain meaning and purpose attached to it. Artist Tracey Emin exhibited a queen size unmade bed that showcased used condoms, knickers, bed sheets etc — the show was well-appreciated and won major awards too,” she explains.

Learning to differentiate between what is art and what is not, is something that comes with experience, says Kalpana. “You can look at anything from an artistic angle and create stories around it. This is what the people visiting the museum and seeing the specs also probably did. But just looking at something from an artistic perspective does not make it art. Art does not have to be beautiful but it has to move you in some way,” she says.

Defining what construes art, however, is far tricky, as Alka points out. “Damian Hirst embedded diamonds in a skull and it was sold for millions. There have been times when weird exhibits have gained immense success. I remember curating an exhibition for Enkita Arts in Delhi in 2007. There was an installation that showcased a bald man, wearing glasses, and had a hen perched on his head. The exhibit travelled across India and was an award-winning piece of art. While in transit we lost the specs and had to replace it with a pair of sunglasses. Later someone flicked those too,” Alka says.

Artist Sonal Jain is amused that a teenager got away with a prank of this kind, but there is a takeaway in this, she says. “I can closely relate the incident to the movement of conceptual art or conceptualism that questions what is the nature of art. Conceptual art is art where the concepts or ideas involved take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Marcel Duchamp bought a urinal and put it up in a gallery — it was back then when he changed the notion of art. People no longer consider beautifully painted landscapes to be art. What is art for some today may not be art 50 years down the line,” she says.

And what do students of art have to say about this Sushanto Sarkar, student of applied arts at J.J. School of Arts, says, “I’m not much into visiting museums but the times I have, I did find some stuff that did not make sense to me at all. This prank was fun and it actually showed that people can be made fools of. I wonder if something of this sort would happen in India as well. I will try it at Jehangir someday.”