Let me begin by telling you that when my brother was just starting school, he rebelled at the rules of spelling. 

Why did words have to be spelled in a particular way? 

Why couldn't he spell them as he wanted to spell them? 

He resented the rules and he resisted the authority of those who made them ! 

Keep this in mind. 

I think that Conceptual art comes from people who could not or would not do the difficult work required to become a 'traditional' artist. 

Can't master the necessary skills ? 

No knowledge of perspective?   

Can't draw?

Can't master composition? 

No knowledge of human anatomy?

Don't want to have to learn color theory?

Can't render tonal values ?

These are skills that you must labor to perfect.

It’s difficult.

It takes…..effort.

But, you want a fast track to the exalted position of "artist “.

Well then, just belittle the importance of those skills and debase the notion that they are a prerequisite to creating art. 

Instead, create an art genre that doesn’t require any of those skills.

A new genre. 

And let's call it Conceptual art.

 

Conceptual artists claim that IDEAS and CONCEPTS are the main feature of their art. 

They can slap anything together and call it ''conceptual art'' confident that viewers will find SOMETHING to think about it no matter how banal or trivial the artist's concept! 

There is no way conceptual art pieces can be judged. 

The promoters of this art have attacked the motives and credibility of authorities and critics who might disparage the work. 

They have rejected museums and galleries as defining authorities. 

They reject the idea that art can be judged or evaluated. 

All of this has resulted in a decline in standards. 

And when you jettison standards, quality suffers. 

There really IS such a thing as BAD art ! 

We know this only because we have standards and criteria by which such things can be evaluated. 

It seems that conceptual art comes down to a basic idea: 

No one has the right or authority to make any judgements about art ! 

Art is anything you can get away with ! 

A whole new language has been created to give the work an air of legitimacy and gravitas. 

Conceptual art is 'sold' to the unwary public with ....."ArtSpeak". 

ArtSpeak is a unique assemblage of English words and phrases that the International Art world uses but which are devoid of meaning! 

Have you ever found yourself confronted by an art gallery’s description of an exhibition which seems completely indecipherable?

Or an artist’s statement about their work which left you more confused than enlightened? 

You’re not alone. 

Here are examples of ArtSpeak: 

'Works that probe the dialectic between innovations that seem to have been forgotten, the ruinous present state of projects once created amid great euphoria, and the present as an era of transitions and new beginnings.'' 

Or

''The exhibition reactivates his career-long investigation into the social mutations of desire and repression. But his earlier concerns with repression production--in the adolescent or in the family as a whole--give way to the vertiginous retrieval and wayward reinvention of mythical community and sub-cultural traditions.''

This language is meant to convince me that there is real substance to this drivel which is being passed off as 'art'.

I don't buy it. 

But plenty of other people DO buy it. 

Not because they love the work. 

They are laying out enormous sums in the belief that their investment will bring them high returns in the future. 

One Jeff Koons conceptual piece is three basketballs suspended in a fish tank.

Here is Koons' own ArtSpeak explanation of his floating basketball 'concept' verbatim: 

“ This is an ultimate state of being. 

I wanted to play with people’s desires. 

They desire this equilibrium. 

They desire pre-birth. 

I was giving a definition of life and death. 

This is the eternal. 

This is what life is like, also, after death.

Aspects of the eternal”

Rather lofty goals for 3 basketballs suspended in a fish tank!!

 

It sold for $350,000. 

I wonder what it would have fetched without Koons' name attached to it.

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Or take the case of Martin Creed's ball of crumpled white paper. 

He made almost 700 of them!

  This one sold for $250.00

  

Martin Creed, when asked during an interview how he would respond to those who say the crumpled ball isn’t art said :

“ I wouldn’t call this art either. 

Who says, anyway, what’s good and what’s bad?”

Interviewer:
''When confronted with conceptual art, we shouldn’t worry whether it’s art or not because no one really knows what art is.''

                         Is this what art has come to??

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Something radical has happened to the art scene in the past 50 years. 

Cubism slid into non-representational art....what is often called Abstract. 

Abstract or non-representational art is a legitimate and often profound genre.

                          

                    

                                                                       

But to many people, it appeared as if this new style had no structure, principles  or standards of evaluation. 

It’s markings seemed random and arbitrary. 

Something that anyone could do. 

Any composition of blotches or scribbles was “Abstract”. 

This was the slippery slope that led to the abandonment of standards in art. 

''Art is what I say it is’'

And lots of people jumped on the art bandwagon. 

Anyone can be an artist.

Anyone can mount a show.

And who is to say if it has value?

A tacit agreement has formed among critics, galleries, publications and auction houses to promote and celebrate certain artists and styles. 

Objects with no artistic merit are touted and praised . 

 

 Their value increases with every magazine article, every exhibition in a prestigious gallery. 

   

And when they come up for auction, sometimes the auction houses will lend vast sums to a bidder so that it appears as if the work of the particular artist is increasing in value. 

The upward spiral begins.

Fortunes are made. 

And many are reluctant to declare that the Emperor is, in fact, naked lest they appear boorish unsophisticated Philistines !

This is what dominates the art market today. 

The love of money is the root of all evil. 

It has corrupted politics. 

It has corrupted sport. 

It has corrupted healthcare. 

It has corrupted religion. 

And now it has corrupted art. 

But, there is reason to hope. 

As much of the wisdom of the Greeks and Romans was kept alive through the Middle Ages in small pockets of learning and culture, ateliers have sprung up around the world that are devoted to preserving and handing down the traditional visual arts: drawing, painting and sculpting to each new generation. 

And when this craze for conceptual art has burned itself out and when visual art is no longer looked on as mere decoration and when schools that have dissolved their art programs want to reestablish them again, the world will find these skills preserved through the atelier movement.

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