Historically we can look back over the last century and see how art reflected the time in which it was made. It becomes easier in critical terms to define an era the further away we get. Given that the art world tends to think in decades in spite of artists spanning multiple generations, what of this decade will determine the way art has been conceived and consumed? From my corner of Adelaide that determination seems remote. There are landscape painters, installationists, those involved in identity politics, minimalists, portraitists, abstract painters, traditional sculptors, constructivists and a host of young artists [mostly female it seems to me] whose optimism about the future is unbounded in seeing a path to societal redemption through art even when they are exploring their own identities and histories. I doubt that the rest of the world is any different in the variety and diversity of art practice available. Globalisation has made its mark, not in terms of ideas, but in the easy access to the work of artists in every corner of the world as well as gallery exhibitions and museum collections.
Three particular vehicles for the dissemination of art come to mind. The Adelaide Biennale is typical of curated exhibitions. A theme of Monsters was adopted for the most recent one and the curators did their best to find a centre for the wide variety of work on offer in that they chose particular work to fit the theme. As admirable as the sentiment was, this artificial vision of collective angst did not for me reflect anything but a personal view. It bore little resemblance to the reality of art practice in Adelaide other than in its diversity. Are such blockbuster curated themes of any real value? Essentially, they are a market place. Even a smaller version at the Floating Goose studio consisting of the work of three artists and a conceptual idea was the brainchild of one person attempting to find commonality and even her obvious enthusiasm failed to convince me of anything but the shallowness of the ideas.
The other two vehicles are Bluethumb and Saatchi, both online selling organisations. While anyone can exhibit their work in the hope of sales, the similarities of the work suggests a curated centre even when there isn’t one. That comes particularly from seeing the works in reproduction and the homogenisation of size and production values. There is little sense of what seeing the works in reality might bring. Bluethumb is Australian and the landscape/nature theme seems to dominate seemingly pushing the idea that the tradition of realist art is strong. Saatchi has more variety and artists on offer but less of a thematic feel but the glossy image on the page lends a magazine quality to it all. Art as home decoration commodity is far from dead.
In these times the online exhibition has become the norm even though art galleries continue to ply their trade even with social distancing in place but is this helping us to understand just what characterises this era? Somehow, I don’t think so.
Perhaps though there is a light from an unexpected quarter. The books on contemporary artists by Mel Gooding cover a range of artists, mostly British, who are not exactly household names but who have worked consistently over decades. Patrick Heron, Frank Bowling, Gillian Ayres, Merlyn Evans and Zoe Whitley among others may well represent the voices that have been least heard but are the most important.