Is art silent above us?

— about the emptiness we call value

Sometimes I get the impression that art is not so much dying as falling into a strange semi-slumber. It lies somewhere on the cold floor of a gallery, breathing shallowly, while we circle around it, pretending that this is a temporary state, that this is how it is supposed to be. That meaninglessness is a new form of meaning, and emptiness is proof of depth. 

I once heard somewhere that art is a conspiracy of people who mutually confirm their initiation. A closed circle of glances, gestures and meanings, from which those who came here for an experience, not for instructions, are excluded. If you don't understand, it means that the problem lies with you. In your naive need for meaning. 

We enter the gallery. In the middle of the room stands a concrete block. Raw, indifferent, impenetrable. Like a nameless gravestone. Someone gave it the title: ‘The silence of structure in the face of transience’. Next to it, someone added a story about the human condition, about the burden of existence, about a world without foundations. It costs two thousand euros. Or more. Or even more — depending on who believes it first. And the block remains silent. The viewer also remains silent, unsure whether his inner opposition is still thinking or already sin. Two thousand euros — that's how much this silence costs. 

A few rooms further on: a small canvas. Bare, almost pristine. A single stain — accidental, undefined, like the trace of a hand twitch that did not have the courage to become a gesture. The jury speaks of the ‘courage to give up’, of the ‘aesthetics of understatement’. Six thousand euros for something that looks like an abandoned attempt. And suddenly one begins to doubt not art, but oneself: is this stain a record of an internal drama, or just a sign of the times, in which less means more, and almost nothing means the most? 

Elsewhere, CDs hang from the ceiling, glistening coldly, impersonally, like relics of an era that also promised meaning. The installation speaks of excess, of change, of the empty circulation of information. And I think about how easy it is today to hang anything, as long as it is high up, out of reach. As if art were afraid to come down to earth, to look people in the eye. 

Contemporary art increasingly resembles a declaration: this is art because I say so. An object, a gesture, a coincidence — anything can be art if it is placed in the right context. The boundaries of perception stretch to the limits of absurdity. And it's not that art should be ‘pretty’ or ‘understandable’. The question is whether there is still room for real experience in this whole conceptual maze. 

Where are the limits of perception? Where does art end and intellectual excuse begin? Does everything that is named become meaningful? Is context enough to justify a lack of content? Or perhaps we are afraid to admit that some works are empty because we ourselves feel empty? 

Why does it cost so much? Because price has become an argument. Because a high price is supposed to replace value, and the market — conscience. Gladiators earn more today than the Romans did. Spectacle wins over content, and noise drowns out thought. Artists are increasingly becoming performers of their own presence, and works of art — a pretext for discussion that has long since detached itself from the subject matter. 

And yet art used to hurt. It was anxiety, guilt, a trembling conscience. It was not afraid of ugliness or weight. Today, it is increasingly cold, sterile, ironic. As if it were afraid to say too much, lest it be accused of naivety. 

And yet art has always been a risk. A revelation. An attempt to touch something that cannot be easily named. Today, it too often resembles a game of appearances: who will be the first to assign meaning, who will defend it more loudly, who will sell the narrative more effectively. 

Is art going to the dogs? Perhaps not art itself. Perhaps we have learned to confuse silence with depth, and emptiness with mystery. Perhaps true art still exists — modest, demanding, uncomfortable — but it does not fit into catalogues, it does not shine at auctions, and it cannot be easily summarised in a few sentences of a curator's description — and it waits for someone to dare to hear it. Not to understand it. To hear it. 

Because perhaps the most frightening thing about all this is not that art can be empty.

You just have to want to see it. And have the courage to say: this moves me — or: this is empty. Without fear that someone will consider us uninitiated. 

The most frightening thing is that it hurts us less and less, and perhaps that is why we so rarely talk about it. 

Deux Meus is a company with a passion for art, offering unique paintings, handicrafts and decorations to add character to any interior. Discover my diverse collection!

Follow me

Menu