ART IS FINISHED. OR IS IT?

One of the questions frequently asked by amateur painters on FB is ‘is it finished?’ The dilemma of constant change leads to indecision and a failure of intuition. Doubt can kill the creative process. So, what in the end does ‘finished’ mean? On one level, according to a convenor of an art competition, it was when the title and frame was added. Another opinion put emphasis on varnishing and the signature in the bottom right corner, and yet another when a work was hung in a sympathetic environment.  ‘Finished’ becomes a commodity description when the art market comes into play and all of these opinions suggest that the work itself needs an added element. In critical terms, this aligns with the belief that meaning in a painting derives not from the artist but from the external interpreter of the work and a work is only finished once it communicates with an audience. Attempting to predict audience reaction and cater for it is not what artists do. The personal nature of creativity denies the audience at all. At best, what the viewer receives is geared to personal preference and bias of a life lived outside of that of the artist. The artist working with a concept is on a continual search for understanding, which may take a lifetime to resolve. Any connection between the two is incidental.

Every artist reaches a point where they are finished with a work but the idea of the finished work suggests that not only does each work stand alone, but that there is a point where everything comes together in a state of ultimate completeness. Any artists worth their salt would recognise the impossibility of that idea. Creativity is a stream and as writers of art histories are keen to point out, everyone and everything is linked. They also often suggest a linear progression, particularly with the Western Tradition and are keen to recognise the masterpiece which encapsulates everything the artist was trying express but often the ‘masterpiece ‘ is left for others to recognise. When Picasso’s legacy was discussed, barely one hundred works of the thousands he produced were declared to be masterpeices. He might well have disagreed. Each work presented a problem to be resolved  or Picasso and some did this better than others. Even Da Vinci, for his part, carried the Mona Lisa around for decades never convinced that it was finished. The decision to declare it a finished masterpiece was left to the Louvre and its publicity machine.

The question of finished in fact only becomes relevant when a work is exhibited or auctioned and the demand is for a specific date and title to be included to prove provenance. There are many examples of dealers providing both title and date as a means of identification and of artists decrying the idea of the title completely. In recent times artists have included certificates of authenticity to combat a world of copies and fakes so the title and date become fixed in cement. On the other hand, it is not uncommon for works to hang around the studio for years or be reworked over a period of time before ending up on the market. Both title and date can be fluid and as with the case of Louise Nevelson, she regularly changed titles and dates as work moved from one exhibition to another, much to the annoyance of her biographer.

Conceptual art could be described as unfinishable in that a conceptual work, or an installation, essentially exists both inside and outside of time. While either can take a particular physical form, albeit temporary in some instances, at best the only label can be one of location as in a particular building or as part of a biennale. The term ‘finished’ is a misnomer in that the audience moving and around the exhibit ‘completes’ the work in the sense that it was always meant to be interactive. When Marina Abramovic faced thousands with The Artist is Present there was in fact no exhibition or object and the idea of finished didn’t come into the equation. Even the film documenting the event was spread over a month and the film maker was quite separate from the event. By the time the film was released the event was over.

A recent controversy over the work of Damien Hirst has brought the idea of conceptual and finished dates into question.  Redating productions of previous works as having been created in recent times by the Science Ltd factory blurred the lines between conception and creation. The differences in dating raised questions amongst collectors and dealers about contemporary art and the degree of transparency intended by galleries and artists. Some argue that the use of misleading dates undermines the historical context and authenticity of the artworks, while others put forward the premise that the artist’s intention takes precedence over chronological accuracy. Hirst, like most artists returns to themes and there can be no discernible difference between works twenty years apart. If someone requests another cow in formaldehyde, he is happy to oblige as is his factory to repair and replace a deteriorating shark.  Hirst states that what he assigns to them is the date of the work’s conception. Asked what is important in conceptual art, he said that it is not the physical making of the object or the renewal of its parts but rather the intention and idea behind the artwork that is important. Words such as credibility, authenticity, accountability and integrity have all been bandied about as condemnation of his practice. In a sense he is not declaring a work to be finished since as one of his sharks begins to fall apart and needs to be continually repaired or replaced, he is happy to comply.  In another sense an idea or concept which continues on indefinitely defying both dating and a linear progression becomes the norm.