ART FOR ART'S SAKE (2014)

Installation with Audio 33:31

Listen to the audio here.

 

This project attempts to reflect my chaotic and mixed feelings towards the art community and contemporary art as a whole.

 

Ever since I enrolled at university; I unintentionally enrolled in the twisted and pretentious world of art. All I have ever wanted to do is take and produce aesthetically pleasing images.

However it is impossible for me to do this without reasoning. In the world of contemporary masterpieces, you cannot produce work without reasoning or meaning. 

 

Contemporary art suffers the most from this, I have gone to many a gallery, prestigious and lowly, seen works that seem barely better than the plinth they stand on. Yet they redeem themselves by the means of reasoning, they inform the public of how the work is more than three polystyrene cups or a popped balloon. Assisted and abetted by the artistic community, this ‘art’ is then revered and praised for their thoughtfulness and ingenuity.

 

Art for Art’s Sake is the audio of one man walking around a gallery, looking at art but not looking at the reasoning behind them and speaking his mind about them. Art for Art’s Sake is the internal monologue of the everyman as they go to an art gallery, it’s what everyone thinks but you don’t say. Art for Art’s Sake is what you’re afraid to say, in case the art community lambasts you for not ‘getting it’. Art for Art’s Sake is what you think but don’t say at any point, in case people think you’re stupid that you didn’t ‘get’ some art because ‘everyone’ gets art.

 

Access the University of South Wales Graduate page here.