Character Monologues

Why Most Art is Shit So art's for you? Well done. Congratulations on making the right choice! Now here are a few tips to help you on the road to fame and fortune. Firstly, join a school of art or the appropriate faculty within a university or college. If you have any difficulty in persuading the examiners of the quality of your chosen medium, just fall back on that old safety net, fine art. Exponents in this field will know that it covers most things from sculpture to painting and consequently, will offer you a wider choice from which to convince them of your talent. But of course art isn't just clay work or paints. Dance, drama, writing, music, poetry and even photography can all be art, too. So even if you can't draw fingers or hands properly, don't despair- have a go at being a naturally gifted choreographer! Without question, you must remember to look like an artist. You'll be surprised how easy it can be to fool family and friends alike that you possess genius. After all, just look at the top fashion designers! Always relate your genius to childhood hardships and difficulties. Tell everyone of your unhappy memories, when you would be locked in your room and, as a result, learnt to perfect your talent for anatomical sketches of the lower parts. Wear ridiculous clothes. Advertise yourself! You will discover your 'Medusa with crewcut' will travel to the eye more fluently if you explain its meaning clothed in unconventional attire. Remember we are talking about creation, and if you have enough conviction, anything can appear as art. Sculpture is the easiest access to the exclusive membership of art Avante-Garde, and one must always remember to speak of 'Concepts' when explaining ones work. This term is acceptable to the intellectual audience while at the same time nullifies the persistent critic. Most artists cohabit a wide field with critics who have been to the same colleges, academies and universities as themselves, people who talk the same language. There is an abundance of room in this pasture, mostly taken up by those versatile connoisseurs, the sculptors. Often misunderstood, these extraordinary craftsmen and women, continually berated by philistines, suffer more than other artists because their work is less intelligible. They are often the cause of controversy due to the infinite choice of materials they use and the manner in which they construct them. Work that comes not by repetition and a birth of style, but by idea. But why should they devote themselves to the long monotonous road to renown when there are countless short cuts instead? Who can forget the mephitic exhibition where rotting meat is displayed in glass cabinets? When first seen, one is immediately struck by the smell, and that is something not expected. To hear talk of an exhibition of rotting meat would usually cause you to wonder of the sight, the colour of flesh, the disassociation of carrion placed within white clean walls and spacious floors. The contrast would be stunning. But it was odour, the stench of the work that jolted the senses. 'Nasally mesmerising-' sniffed one notable critic; 'The rancid smell of success-' said another; 'It stinks-' commented the editor of Art Break, beautifully encompassing the essence of the display while at the same time exemplifying the reaction of the casual visitor. Another piece of work which has continued to inspire is the massive construction of motor tyres designed in the shape of a submarine. What is so striking about this work is the juxtaposition of two totally alien abstractions, and the way the creation of it appears new and at the same time identifiable. We can recognise tyres and can easily visualise their purpose, and we imagine a submarine and know of its use. But a tyre submarine? It tangles in an instant our conception of what is acceptable, rewires the complex network that is our interpretation of the norm, and stimulates what it comes from- ideas! Within the sculptor's mind is a union of creativity. One, the image fabricated mentally and two, the image actually, what he hopes will be the finished article. Now imagine yourself in the mind of this creative constructor. The idea may arrive while you are laying awake at night before sleep. You visualise a pebble in a jar on a beach and are stunned by the concept. The jar is consumerism, the pebble nature shaped by the elements, and the beach nature shaping nature. Here is art, delicately designed with the mind to personify the uneasy, possibly conflicting relationship, between the natural environment and the utensils that are made to capture it, snare it, if you will. Two months later you hold an exhibition in London and call it 'Discordant Cosmos', or something similar that hints at the meaning in your efforts (You have to make them work for their information). The work shows the way the natural world is enclosed within the objects she herself is made of. The reviews are good and you occupy a double-page spread in The Observer Supplement. 'Pebble in a Jar' is the Genesis of the exhibition, but 'Raindrop in Can', 'Leaf in Box' and 'Grape in Plastic Bag' also receive favourable comments. 'An exhilarating concept' says The Guardian; 'Breaking the back of the concept of conformity', gushes The Times; 'It will Challenge people's concepts of Modernism, Individualism, Masochism and Hinduism' predicts The Independent. At last your life has been opened and you suddenly realise that you have always wanted to be an artist. It was only something dormant waiting to come to the surface, like breaking open food from a freezer that still tastes wonderful when thawed. You have a million ideas coming now, better than old tyres, better than rotting meat. What you have now is potential. And all those short cuts are multiplying. There are so many that you have to programme your memory like a computer, filing each prospect in order of priority. Of course you are still humble enough to know you have your betters, masters of their craft who have set standards to follow. We are talking of the legendary Penelope Studentus, whose conceptions are so original, technical and ahead of her time, that others rarely attempt to even match her achievements. Astoundingly, this woman has constructed man-shaped man-sized figures with clay, wires and plaster, and dared to attach to them artificial genitals! Big, long protrusions that aren't real, but actually resemble the private parts of a man! She takes this novel concept even further and develops it with female subjects. It makes even the most imaginative designer wonder at how such unique visions are born. She is also an inspiration to others whenever they experience the inevitable temporary loss of their creative impulsion. She herself talked of the barren years when she struggled to find the accord vital to the foundation of the work. "It took me six years to find the exact point where the genitals would manifest the idea I desperately needed to reveal." she confessed. When genius blooms, small clues are usually always evident in the early years, signs that prove indicative of the promise to come. In Penelope's case, it was in her outrageous college years. Here was a girl who would dare to don sweaters and T-shirts with real swear words on the front! Not just the first and last letters with the customary two dashes in between that only hinted at the expletive, but the whole word, in capitals! This recklessness is difficult to imagine even today, but to display such nonconformity five or ten years ago seems beyond belief. It was obvious that this talent for controversy would instigate an unrestrained response from the art scene in London. These phenomenal sculptures would mark a point in contemporary art that most would fail to excel, and it was actually questioned by other artists whether similar pioneering work would, in the future, be best kept secret for fear it might advance the excellence of form so far forward that art itself would completely re-circle and impel a totally new concept from the ashes that would result from the genius-fire of this prodigy. Phidias of The Parthenon, eat your heart out. This sculptor isn't crap, you philistine! She's only misunderstood! It's the ones you understand that you have to be wary of! Where the hell would we be if everybody started understanding everybody else? Conceptual art has to be a language that no one can read. Don't you start getting ideas about what you think a piece of art should be- just listen to the artist's definition and believe what you're told. There's no such thing as bad art. That's a contradiction in terms. If you start placing borders or rules to art then it's the beginning of the end. Art is its own limit. To be artistic is to be different, special. Out of the rut so damaging to creativity. To be an artist is to resent authority, to cut against the grain. Don't be afraid to risk the accusation of Charlatan. Remember that art can be anything to anyone, and Surrealist and abstract art are big pigeonholes. To be a sculptor of surreal or conceptual or abstract art is to demolish every enclosure of artistic specification. Gone are the days when time and effort were necessary for the ideal result, when you needed to go through monotonous trials and experiments in order to weed out all the bad stuff that covered the best. Who wants to know of the ten canvasses sacrificed for the one, or the twelve pages of written work condensed into two? Forget that rubbish about art begging the dedication of the misled; that its apex is beauty. That wonder, exhilaration and even discomfort can be reason enough for admiration; that abhorrence and indifference are its enemy. Forget about art colouring in questions that you are not even aware are being asked on your behalf, about each truthful contribution filling in unchallenged spaces their addition proved existed. Forget also that artists are relieved of their hardships only when they are working on the very cause of them. And with enough belief, it doesn't matter whether you chose your art or your art chose you. This one goes out to all the fakers, pretenders, falsies and shammers who infest my stage. You know who you are. The truth will out and you, with your deceptions, along with it.