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| RTomens, 2018 |
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Call on your own sensibility, the culture you come from; the art one isn’t more intelligent than that. Don’t let it overshadow or intimidate you. I think it’s really necessary to find a language to make art that’s not academic. We need more people to do that, without just being unthinkingly pop. I’m much more comfortable with music and part of the reason for that is there you can get to see working-class creativity on a phenomenal scale. I’m still waiting for the day where that filters across.
- Mark Leckey
Yes, Mark, don't hold your breath, mate! (He's working class so I call him 'mate' because that's what us proles call each other, isn't it?).
I don't mind, Mark Leckey. Do I damn him with feint praise? Well, you won't get strong opinions on contemporary artists from me because I don't pay them any attention.
I came across an interview with him when I sourced a review of the album, Third Noise Principle: Formative North American Electronica 1975-1984, which I've just bought. He's right about music; it's been a bastion of prole creativity since forever. Why is that? Most obviously, especially since the DIY explosion of Punk, it became, along with zines, the ANYONE CAN HAVE A GO means of expression. The Street, from which virtually all great music emerged, knew that already. Most great music (non-Electronic) was born in the streets with Folk, Blues and Jazz, wasn't it?
Pre-Punk, street players played anyway and if they were lucky/talented, got signed. But it was Punk that spawned the collective attitude that was deemed necessary because music had got all highfalutin, right? Music had 'grown up'. No, hold on, some music had grown up. If you weren't there and have read a few things you might be under the impression that Prog muso dinosaurs dominated music in 76. They didn't. But their very existence along with, let's face, the heavy weight of musical history, needed blowing away.
Christ, you don't need a musical history lesson!
The point I'm wandering towards is that music allowed prole liberation whereas Art rarely does. I mean, anyone can form a band or make music from their home but it's not quite as easy to mount an exhibition and the Art World is...so...precious...so academic. You're even supposed to have attended college! Imagine having to attend music college before being taken seriously. Yes, Classical musicians do, of course.
Mark's dream of the day when working class art 'filters across' is born out of being part of The Art World. Good luck to him! Meanwhile, does he think about all the art being shown by 'nobodies' on the internet every day? Granted, it's not easy to grasp the phenomenon. For starters, it has nothing to do with his Art World. How can it? It is not marketable, has no Fine Art kudos and does not elevate the status of it's participants except in the eyes of a few followers.
Who's going to recognise these prole artists? What kind of reception would they get from a gallery-owner, never mind a professional critic? Few of us can afford, or even want, to put on exhibitions. We're not connected to the 'right' people. We're the equivalent of players just strumming their guitars on porches in early-20th century America. Playing for the hell of it, because it's what we need or love to do. The difference is that nobody is ever going to discover us, sign us up and make us known.
Boo-hoo...
Today I finally got around to boxing up my art. It had been sitting in a pile for years. Boxing up the A4 art, that is (the A3 and other sizes went into bags which now sit on top of the wardrobe). A4? That's me, common as muck! But in the words of Mark Leckey, it is my 'own sensibility', the culture I come from. And it's far too common to ever 'filter across'!
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