Painting
is Dead; Long Live Painting
When
BritArt went up in flames three weeks ago, there were those who hoped
it would never rise from the ashes. Among them were a group of painters
showing in Londons Jerwood Space, who claim to be leading the
fightback against conceptual art. Figurative painting is dismissed
as archaic, they complain, while art world fashionistas favour the
headline-grabbing unmade beds and pickled sharks of Emin and Hirst.
Figurative painting is the easier of the two to define. Its
not abstract; it depicts people, places or things that are recognisable,
and its often in oil on a rectangular canvas. It ranges from
Giotto to Freud and encompasses a vast range of styles, but comes
with so much art historical baggage that many contemporary artists
prefer to avoid it completely.
Conceptual art is harder to pin down. Most people agree that it started
on the day in 1917 that Marcel Duchamp placed an ordinary urinal in
a gallery and called it art. It wasnt until the 1970s that it
really took off, largely as a reaction against the commercialisation
of the artworld. Ideas are much harder to buy than paintings, although
the market managed to catch up, as the BritArt phenomenon has proved.
Is conceptual art a has-been? Is figurative painting once again a
wannabe? If these questions give you a sense of déja vu, its
because we have actually been here before. Twenty years ago a group
of young Glasgow School of Art graduates (Ken Currie, Peter Howson
et al) shot to fame with their vigorous brand of figurative painting,
and became known worldwide as The New Glasgow Boys.
So is it happening again? With the Glasgow School of Art degree shows
around the corner, its a good time to check the pulse of painting.
First stop, Francis McKee, tutor on the prestigious Master of Fine
Art course. Painting is gradually reclaiming its place in the hearts
of young artists, he thinks, but hes not keen to relive the
painting boom of the 1980s.
There was something happening in the 1980s, says McKee.
That kind of figurative expressionist painting with lots of
mysterious men standing around in the moonlight; a lot of that was
very poor work. Nothing was happening in it. It looked very nice and
people liked it because they saw people in the paintings. Theres
nostalgia for painting, and theres nostalgia for people standing
around in paintings, which you also get in Jack Vetrianno. You can
see that he doesnt paint beyond the 1930s. Its pure chocolate
box nostalgia.
The whole painting is dead argument knocked the
wind out of students for a while, he admits. A lot of
people felt that it wasnt the way to go, and there was a point
where everyone seemed to be making videos. That has rectified itself
and people have become confident that painting is worth sticking with.
That said, painters are still in a minority on the Glasgow course.
Hideko Inoue came to Scotland five years ago from Japan, where she
studied painting as an undergraduate. Her degree show work consists
of finely-worked canvases copied from her grandfathers collection
of snapshots. In contrast to her experience of Japan, Hideko is the
only artist on the MFA who uses oil paint to create recognisable images
on canvas. There are two more painters, she explains,
but one is abstract and the other has more of a conceptual,
minimalist attitude.
Hideko is baffled by the status she is accorded as a contemporary
artist simply by being on the MFA. Otherwise, she suspects, shed
be dismissed as a purely decorative artist along with painters of
landscapes sold in Glasgows smaller commercial galleries. That
dividing line I find quite strange, she says.
Im quite interested in what kind of feedback Im
going to get after the degree show, she laughs, because
I look quite traditional amongst the weird sculptures and weird sound
pieces.
Amongst the weirder of these sculptures is a 14-foot yacht, wrapped
entirely in white plastic and balancing high up on stilts. Its name
is Drawings from Antarctica, and its creator is Ruth Barker. While
the stilts and plastic involved a lot of work for Barker, the boat
is not her own creation. This puts the artist somewhere between conceptual
art and sculpture, although its a risky business trying to slot
contemporary artists into neat categories.
Im primarily a sculptor, argues Barker, and
I make collections of objects, but I suppose theyre all traditionally
well-made
The work that I make is not very fashionable in Glasgow
at the moment because its so labour-intensive.
Barker is concerned that the strong network of grass roots galleries
in Glasgow is showing only a very specific brand of conceptualism,
and neglecting the rest. She describes it as low-fi, small scale,
conceptual art, in the sense that it uses an art language which you
have to be another artist to understand. Its not very accessible,
and its art that could be accused of not engaging with the real
world very much.
Peter Howson, whose brutish figures of the 1980s were a hit with the
Scottish public and with investors as exotic as Madonna, has similar
concerns. He disapproves of art which communicates only with an expert
minority. Marcel Duchamp opened up a Pandoras Box,
he says. There dont seem to be any rules at the moment
so we get this polarisation between Sunday painters painting oils,
and doing them pretty badly most of the time, and conceptual artists
doing things that only a fraction of people seem to understand.
Ironically, the popular style which Barker describes can be seen as
a sign that Glasgows avant garde is ready to return if
only very tentatively to drawing and painting. After a few
years of glossy digital imagery and video technology, artists are
rediscovering the human touch, taking pleasure in making marks on
paper all over again.
The difficulty a lot of people have with this new style is its apparent
lack of finish although some see the felt-penned doodles as
a return to the basic principles of drawing and painting, others argue
that theyre devoid of craftsmanship. Attitudes towards drawing
and painting have changed substantially since the advent of conceptual
art. Found objects and scribbled ideas have become just as acceptable
as carefully-honed images, and many people find that hard to accept.
Its something that painters have to be very careful about,
is banging on about craft, warns Ken Currie, whose paintings
of Scotlands labour history won widespread acclaim in the 1980s.
Some of the most powerful paintings I have ever seen are absolutely
ham-fisted and craftless, Currie continues. Im thinking
specifically of Edvard Munch. His paintings look as though he painted
them on his way to work while he was riding a horse! Theyre
just a couple of lines but theyre incredibly powerful
I dont care how its produced. It doesnt bother me
whether its technically brilliant or technically appalling,
so long as the image is compelling and powerful.
Currie is sceptical about claims of a resurgence for painting. People
have been talking about it for 25 years, he says. What
people are going to have to finally, finally realise is that painting
isnt going to go away. Its not going to die and then be
resurrected. It doesnt work like that. Painting is just going
to exist forever, simple as that.
Paintings always in crisis, Currie argues. Its
been in crisis ever since they started painting 40,000 years ago.
And the reason its in crisis is because of this permanent desire
to reinvent itself all the time. Rather than die, painting simply
reinvents itself for the time that were living in.
Francis McKee agrees. Painting has always been fascinating,
he points out, but its refused to accept the stereotypes
of what painting should be. And that annoys people it really
annoys people! And they blame conceptualists. They see someone putting
a glass of water on a shelf and saying its an oak tree and they
go you killed painting! but painters dont want to
get their old role back. You could wipe out all the conceptualists,
refuse to exhibit them, and painters are still going to disappoint
you by doing new stuff; theyre not going to be stuck with this
old role that people want from them.
Howson has a more black and white vision of the situation. Ive
always believed that conceptual art has been taken on at the expense
of painting, he claims, especially by the museum curators
and the Turner judges. For Currie, McKee, Barker and Hideko,
there is no opposition between different types of art; the problem
is purely one of politics in the media and in the art world.
Recently were seeing these ridiculous stand-offs,
says Currie. Particularly weve got this horrible Jack
Vetrianno situation in Scotland. Its Jack Vetrianno versus Damien
Hirst. I think theyre two sides of the same coin, both of them.
Theyre both businessmen, both self-publicists, both give the
public what the public want.
There is a consensus among artists that there is no real war going
on between conceptual art and figurative painting. All good painting
involves concepts. Much of conceptual art is figurative. Above all,
the art world today is dominated by no one medium. Instead its
a healthy mix of painting, video, sculpture, installation, sound,
carpet fluff and bananas. If its hard to understand its
often branded as conceptual, and lets face it, thats the
stuff everybody loves to hate.
GSA
fine art degree show June 19-26, Renfrew street campus
Hiscox MFA degree show June 17-27, Tramway
Catrìona
Black, Sunday Herald 13.06.04