I recently sat through the 2023 Series of Australian Idol and while I had in the end no investment in who won or of which judge topped the popularity stakes, the idea of public taste determining a winner suggested on the one hand a belief that statistical measuring such as counting votes meant anything and on the other that the ‘man-in-the-street was a cultural arbiter. As far as I could see, comparing apples to oranges to pomegranates was based not upon talent but the oft-repeated back story. The soundbites of the eventual winner won out over those with no more than youth on their side or those living in the margins of society serving up icecream. All of the finalists deserved to ‘win’ on the basis of talent. However, this was reality TV where talent had in the end little to do with it. The gap between the real world and the illusory world has narrowed, at least in video game and reality TV terms, where one has become a version of the other. Should we care? Over a lifetime I have seen the disparity between ‘life’ and illusion, widen or narrow depending upon your point of view and become the accepted norm.

In the art world there is a similar illusory state as presented each time there is a judged competition and the public are asked to vote for their choice of winner. Seldom do the two coincide. You might ask, what do the voting public actually know compared to an art professional schooled in all forms of art and commentary? Possibly, not much at all, or everything. So, why ask? Trying to get art audiences to connect to the work on the walls or the floor is all well and good but as with Australian Idol, it may inevitably come down to the back story.

Recently a potential buyer contacted me with regard to a work displayed online. She wanted to know ‘what it was about’. My eyebrows curled momentarily as I pondered what to say and what not to say. As I’ve found frequently at gallery openings, the question is essentially rhetorical and all that is required in a succinct soundbite. A longer explanation results in a glazing-over of the eyes. Suggesting that the questioner refer to the artist statement in the catalogue most times results in looks of confusion. There is an endemic mistrust of words on paper, something apparently rife in establishments of higher learning where reading books or even complete sentences is anathema. Sadly, my written explanation fell on deaf ears and I never heard from the buyer again. In a second such round of banter, a gallery owner asked a similar question and after my several-sentence explanation offered the one-word response ‘deep’. I didn’t pursue it since she had moved on to the logistics of sculpture-placement which put control back in her hands.

Is there such a divide between what might be called an academic/learned approach to understanding and popular conceptions of cultural acceptance? In some people’s minds it comes down to whether or not you are attuned to the universe – that mystical state where the subconscious determines reality. A variety of philosophers from Kant to Heidegger to Indian Swamis looked into the divide between a lived life of phenomena and a spiritual world and couldn’t agree. Religion too was just as divided with an afterlife dominating thought in some cases and not in others. Culture, with either a big C or a small one comes with baggage and is equally divisive in terms of who knows what it is all about or who is entitled to make a comment.

Singing competitions and art competitions have much in common if a public vote is all that separates winner from loser and even in the case of a solitary art judge or a panel or judges, the inbuilt bias is inevitable. When I saw the result of an art competition in Adelaide this week, with a substantial prize attached, two things stood out. One was the phrase ‘well- known local artist’ and the other that the winning entry had superior brushwork. Nothing was said of a substantial nature about the interpretation of the theme but those two soundbites resonated with an agreeing public. Woebetide that anything controversial be chosen that altered the level of acceptance or that someone outside of the ‘clique’ be considered worthy [ I didn’t enter by the way so there are no sour grapes].

While personal history soundbites are less likely to play a part in a judged art competition in that little if anything is heard from the artist, the mode of dress, deportment and I suspect, age, displayed in the accompanying press release, act as soundbites in their own right. On the cover of Art Review this month, an artist appeared covered in paint spots, brush in mouth like a cigar and lounging nonchalantly on a motheaten couch – the public perception of a real artist. No doubt the publication’s editor thinks so too. The visual backstory of the eccentric artist thumbing his nose at the world [if that is what he was doing] will undoubtedly sell magazines in that that is the timeworn archetype but considering that the magazine would be read by far more artists than the general public, I doubt that it cut much ice in the public popularity stakes. Should the public have a vote, a quite different result would undoubtedly unfold. After all, who apart from artists understand artists?

So, as the Idol winner basks in the glory and heads off the USA to find more professional recording techs than are available in Australia, it should be remembered that a former winner or two vanished without trace upon release of their ‘hit’ record and the second in the queue went onto international stardom. What in the end did the public know? In the art world popular back stories of the likes of Ah Wei Wei locked up for the umpteenth time by Chinese authorities, and other revolutionaries, may well affect auction prices but as with bananas and overpriced NFTS it all comes down to your press agent. As a noted actor once said volubly, ‘show me the money’. Cultural worth can always be measured by monetary worth or if that fails to impress, an algorithm.