The Bush Dilemma Has The Art World's Panties in a Bunch

The Bush Dilemma

By Barry Kostrinsky

The art world has its panties in a bunch. George Bush has entered some hallowed halls through a side door. Powerful teams of married art writers are reviewing his painted portraits of world leaders he met while playing president. Lady Gaga and Jay-Z were allowed in at the top of the art world for a day. Her pop fame and costumes and his good looks, money and past rap edge were enough to get them in. After all, they were already in the music world: that suburb just down the block from the art world. Zimmerman entered the art world through the prison gates, the only painless prison backdoor I can imagine. But George W Bush came in through a White house back door quite unlike the one JFK slipped in and out of during his short-lived tenure.

President George W Bush at his easel. Notice the empty french easel drawer. In itself it could be a meaningful photograph but it's lack of content makes me wonder about what's in the ex-president's head.

The watchful eye of a critic is hard to come by. Though everyone shares an opinion on your facebook posts few have the clout to make their words count. Artists fight for these flashlights towards hope to shine on them; Even fewer realized all they had to do was become President of the US and then the evil eye would willingly turn their way.

At the crux of the matter is a greater question brewing under the phlem of older critics gaggled bolus. Can art be taught in a few years and can it be taught to anyone? A past Sunday morning show on the boob tube addressed the sister question last week when a segment focused on nature versus nurture in sports and your ability to be like Mikey- Jordan, or Tiger -pre-trimmed Woods or James, not Elmoed but Lebroned. Can athleticism be learned translates to, can aestheticism and artistic ability be learned. In short the answer is no....and yes. Yes it can be learned to an extent. Maybe enough to get you in the 1%; however it can not be learned and practiced to perpel you to the 1% of the 1%, to greatness, for all the bad press the numbers have gotten recently.

So George became a painter. By some critics standards he became a very good one very quickly with formal elements that tie him to Alex Katz and other notables stylistically. The content seems vacuous but that could be a whole page essay in the art world- to his favor! The work seems non-professional, but that could be the artist expressing his inner animal- raw Bush, sort of primitive Bush, a fauvy Bush that doesn't mesh with mauve:

Alex Katz's Kate 1994. Katz's simple and direct style leaves me wondering if this work should be hung in a museum worthy of a Van Rijn boy.

When an example pops up that doesnot sit right in mathematics we look to throw out the rules that make it acceptable. George Bush could signal a paradigm shift in the art world if he is just this red herring example. The thinking goes like this: Bush can't be a great painter- nor a very good one. The art world likes elements of his work. To reconcile, dislike the elements of the work that you like and all those that have that side to their work. Katz's come down from Museums, Rembrandt's legacy is not shaken, not so bad for starters. Okay, more than a Katz or two will have to come down, be unhung, or dismissed: Twombley's scratch marks gotta go, Stills style is lame and Caro's sculpture is a pile of mess!

Twombleys scratch marks reveal an inner fight, a raw angst of man, or are they just little more than scratches on the canvas at the outpost of art that has taken front and center stage in the contemporary world for the last 40 years?

Beyond a few Katzs and his kitten like collaborators the theory of simple stupid will have to exit the art world. In the past and still lame present, you can be simple and stupid and thus sincere and with the right connections you're in the art world. Painting like a kid is cool as long as you show some signs of intellectualism-Basquiat was a master of this and his horse has run too long past the finish pole. Art rightfullly moved from the craft driven word it inhabited to a conceptual driven world trying to evoke a deeper non memetic photographic portrayal of reality. Along the way craft was thrown out and only a sliver of talent need remain behind, sort of a hint that we could do it but choose not to. It is time to ask more of artists.

Basquiat detail from the Philistines painted in the 1980's has become a symbol of a new beauty in the art world. In time it will be revisited and seen as for what it is. A simple and powerful expression of a truth conveyed minimally and without great artistic intent.

A larger question is challenged and put on trial by Bush and the morning news shows: is art for everyone and can everyone do it? Immediately 99% of you reading this must be saying, no I can not. And Yes, because you say so, you are correct, you can not. But that is only the tip of the iceberg. There are many reasons why most people in their late teens or late twenty's or near retirement, can not and never will be able to make great art. Art does not start in year 2 of retirement just as life does not. It does not start on a whim, on a boat, with a chocolate float or on a moat. Art starts with you and your self developement. We are not victims of our rearing, we are our rearing and if your rear was not set in gear from an early age not only won't you become a great artist but also you will probable not become a fully actuallized individual. What does it mean to becone a great artist? It means you change the paradigm and understanding of man and yes woman in or after your time. It can be hard enough to change a woman's mind about what to let the kiddies watch on TV and so indeed this is a big undertaking. If we were all artists we would be spinning from change and too dizzy to paint. Luckily only a few rise to the occasion to see beyond their times, to see through their times and to lead to the next evolution of ideas and art. At times I have seen younger artists and after looking at them and then their work I realize they can not be enlightening, they are just a plain jane rattled and bedazzled by lifes complexion and complexities and they are not-sighted. How could they progress a deeper understanding of humanity when they are so concerned with their hair?

So what of Van Gogh? He only painted the last ten years of his life and most of the work was done in the last two. If you read about the poor bloak you realize there was a strong desire for life and a strong yearning for more in this failed preacher to the potato eating masses. Van Gogh got it, there is no doubt about it, the paintings vibrate with his energy as does his writings and drawings. His work draws towards simplicity but remains complicated and deep. Could you image an artist in today's contemporary art world painting a landscape like Vincent, would he be dismissed?

So art is for all but it is not for free. You must rise to the occasion. We were placed here on this blue green ball but it is not a free ride. You must develop, you must evolve, you must listen in the silence to the sound of nothing to hear it all. Do you here it? Can you convey it to someone?