Dissolution of a Discipline

Andreas Trossek (3/2014)

27. VI–2. XI 2014
Kumu Art Museum
Curators: Merike Estna, Kati Ilves.
Artists: Frank Ammerlaan, Ei Arakawa, Kerstin Brätsch, Merike Estna, James Ferris, Annie Hémond Hotte, Juste Kostikovaite, Kristi Kongi, Kris Lemsalu, Nicolas Party, Katinka Pilscheur, Jon Rafman, Dan Rees, Samara Scott, Simon Daniel Tegnander, Taavi Tulev.

 

"Oh come, now, you don't mean to let on that you like it?"
The brush continued to move.
"Like it? Well, I don't see why I oughtn't to like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?"
That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple. Tom swept his brush daintily back and forth – stepped back to note the effect – added a touch here and there – criticised the effect again – Ben watching every move and getting more and more interested, more and more absorbed. Presently he said:
"Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little."

Mark Twain, "Tom Sawyer" (1876)

 

I am not a painter, but as far as I have heard, there are these two derogatory tropes or sayings going around about painters: "dumb as a painter" and "fence painter". Both of these are thriving¹, the first one more so on the art scene and the other outside art circles. As we all know, the first – bête comme un peintre – is authored by the father of conceptual art Marcel Duchamp, who at some point in his creative genesis decisively turned his back on painting and started criticising "retinal art"; that is, visually appealing art that is clearly nice on the eyes, but does not provide much for the brain. The other trope lives its eternal life in the numerous real and virtual social networks and commentaries and appears every time someone needs to put a painter in their "rightful" place.²

I believe I am not wrong in saying that largely as a reaction to these two thriving tropes, it has been trendy among painters during the last 30–40 years (after the rule of Neo Expressionism ended) to deconstruct painting in one way or another. "To explore the boundaries of the medium", if one were to use a popular postmodernist cliché. To make a painting in a way in which it is not a painting anymore. For example, to give up the horizontal format, which always leads to creating just another landscape motif, however many times you try to do something else. If nothing else helps, to tear the painting from the frames and make the whole surrounding environment into a palette. To give up the figurative approach and use abstraction instead and vice versa: to give up abstractionism and picturesqueness altogether as a modernist relic. All this to show that the artist is capable of analysing, knows the history of painting as a discipline and boldly experiments with new solutions. In brief: does not get stuck.

Last but not least, the never-ending experimentation with the limits of painting helps painters fight against the notion that painting is the most commercial art form almost by nature; that is, the commodity with the highest turnover in the art market.³ Every true Marxist in the West has believed deep inside that beautiful framed pictures on the wall only affirm the ruling hegemony, the injustice imposed on humanity by the rich and powerful, and there have been oh-so-many Marxists among the creators of the core texts of 20th century Western art theory. But if you shred the canvas or take its frame apart, you might be able to explain even to a Marxist that your primary goal was not to sell something: "Petite bourgeoisie and the nouveau riche, lick my acetone-smelling brush rag!"

 

Merike Estna
Blow My Batik & Blue Lagoon
installations
2014
Courtesy of the artist

 

However, when all the jokes have been told and laughed at, inevitably the question "what now?" arises. What does the future hold for painting as a discipline in a situation where the last 30–40 years of painting could be described as anything-goes pluralism (to the nth degree) or all generalisations should be avoided in the first place? While the giants of painting in the 19th century Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Eugène Delacroix argued which is more important, line or colour, what are 21st century painters discussing amongst themselves? Colourful lines? Or what differentiates painting from exclusive interior decoration or democratic DIY designs? Let's be honest, the painted bicycle or the striped wallpaper as objects are already approaching that horizon that marks the dissolution of discipline. And no painting means no problems. (I can already hear the docents and professors flicking through yet another biography of Duchamp calmly explaining that all good art can basically be reduced to conceptualism. Explaining it as if to a child who does not want to accept the facts of life.)

Hey, but stop: it is time to go back to where we started. It seems to me that the trope "fence painter" owes a lot to the popularity of the literary character Tom Sawyer, created by Mark Twain. It could very well be that Mark Twain is the author of the text that has influenced the image of painting as a discipline the most (and not so much as famous art theorists like Clement Greenberg, Arthur Danto or James Elkins). Everyone knows the classic children's story in which Tom had to whitewash his aunt's fence as a punishment, but as he managed to create the impression that it was fascinating, his friends ended up paying him to let them use the brush. It is pure mort de l'auteur plus esthétique relationnelle, is it not? A story based on the idiosyncratic and appetising qualities of painting. So "fence painter" is actually a compliment, not a derogatory expression, because Tom is a clever character and the situation he has orchestrated ends up satisfying everyone. Maybe this story holds a key that opens the door to understanding the present and the future of painting? The disappearance of boundaries, the dissolution of a discipline.

"Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little." All the museums and galleries are already closed.

¹ These tropes have been addressed in Estonian art as well – the first examples that come to mind are Merike Estna’s painting "Just Another Silly Painter?" (2010) and Tõnis Saadoja's site specific painting project "Exercise" (2004).

² For example, I found the following lines from an anonymous comment to Sten Ojavee's article "Suvine hübriidleitsak maalinäitusel" (14. VII 2014) published in the Estonian newspaper Postimees: "It's not as if this could be associated with painting as art, this is more like fence painting. Like house painters used to have paint-blotched overalls. The colours and the design of the blotches could be art, but in this case it is more like a Soviet era construction site."

³ "There are quite a number of materials used that in everyday life would classify as rubbish. Dented sheet metal (Frank Ammerlaan), clothes and rags, all kinds of plastic and stickers, cleaning sponges (James Ferris)". Mari Kartau, Uussiiraste indigolaste dekoratiivne prügikunst. – kultuur.err.ee 31. VII 2014.

Andreas Trossek is the editor-in-charge of KUNST.EE.

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