In the Post-Art Period

Once upon a time in the mid Clinton-era (Bill’s) my wife went to one of the major art schools in Los Angeles. Since I am a painter and at the time was working at paying the bills and would not be exposed firsthand to what was being taught I did the academic reading along with her and kept track of the writing assignments.

After a time I noticed that every reasonably well-crafted essay she turned in received an A-. Junior year it was decided to have a little fun; every essay would be composed within the framework of the relationship between the principles of quantum physics and the fiction of Thomas Mann (to my knowledge there is none). All A-‘s.

In her final year my spouse took a course in “identity art” taught by a famous instructor. “His work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, ….the Kunsthalle Basel, and the Centre d’Art Contemporain in Geneva…... His work is in numerous public collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Walker Art Center, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.” A major figure in contemporary art? Certainly. As part of the course my wife was assigned to read a scholarly article entitled “Where is my Cock?”, in which the author lamented the almost complete lack of Asian men performing in pornography (there was one Vietnamese actor, but he only took the passive position), a situation (I am sure since rectified) that left him feeling marginalized, the invisible other, desexualized, or something.

I wondered, is anyone else studying this? It being the early days of the internet, I did a little research and couldn’t come up with anything. A Google search today comes up with a pretty funny Onion tidbit http://www.theonion.com/articles/why-do-all-these-homosexuals-keep-sucking-my-cock,10861/ and lots of links advertising various goods and services I am not currently in the market for. Was this a serious assignment from a well-respected instructor working within the mission statement of an influential institution? Absolutely.

Time passed. My wife’s classmates, thusly educated, went on to populate the world of curating, critiquing, selling and even making art, the way a physics department sends its graduates out to continue the inevitable progress of the field. But in the realm of physics if I maintained that the value of the speed of light should be equal to the velocity of the cool looking kid in the skateboard video I wanted you to watch on YouTube, that wouldn’t be physics.

I would suggest the definition of Art as anything called Art by anyone calling herself or himself an Artist is the Art World concept of the day, that it is generally accepted that there is no single thing any Artist must do to produce Art, and that there is nothing an Artist is prohibited from doing. If this be the case, we are now in a Post-Art Period.