Leisure: Aug 1, 2005 Art Appreciation Ain't Nothing but plain ol' Scientific Observation

I'm sitting here reading a quip about Robert Spitzer and his overhaul on Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (New Yorker, Jan 1, 2005) and it got me thinking that the quality of reliability- that is sort after by scientists and psychologists -is somewhat akin to art connoisseurship. Aside from a psychiatrist's task in diagnosing what category a disorder falls under, s/he has to determine whether or not the condition is being faked.

There's no denying that it is art because Marcel DuChamp said so, but I believe that even before the era of the Dada-ist, artists have been poking fun at and testing self-appointed connoisseurs by throwing a piece of junk in the mix, just to see if they'd catch it. It was just that DuChamp had the audacity (and great humor) to be the first to use a urinal. A similar test has been conducted on many self-proclaimed wine specialists in blindfold tests.

But take this one step further and you'd realize that more often than not, many of us unquestioningly accept legitimacy the moment we put one foot inside an art museum. No surprise there, since the people who work with images inevitably know the power of framing their work effectively. If you look at a museum as a frame for the works within it, then you'll begin to understand why people never bothered to look at a pile of junk they pass on their way to work, but stop to admire and contemplate the disposal nature of interchangeable parts in the post-industrial advent of plastics as a result of Dworkin-critical Freudian symbiotics when that same pile reappears at a place like the Museum of Modern Art, for example.

And before you get to the actual art work, there is still a go-between frame. That's the genius of branding. See a kitchen soup ladle tied to a few spoons with some ropes, you'd shrug and move on to the sunflowers. See the word Picasso on the accompanying title card, and you immediately nudge your mate in the ribs and smirk, "Oi! It's that guy who popped one for a 104 mil at Sotheby's no?"

So I say this, when you go to a museum next, look first, read later.

Because if it looks like something you put out twice a week, why not stay at home and catch some quality reality tv?

 

-Pristine Ann Gee

 

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