The visual arts can appear nonsensical to many lay people, and painfully self referential and vacuous even to those who speak the language. It is a problem that, as an artist, I have developed strategies to deal with, most involve being precise about exactly which aspect of the arts I admit to being involved with.
But, truth is, over the years I have developed a genuine loathing for the 'ivory tower' school and many of the academics and institutions that support it. On a bad day this includes anyone who lazily uses words such as 'modern' 'post modern' 'avant guarde' or any mention of 'talent'.
Don't get me wrong, I am among the first to wade in to a meaty abstract discussion about aesthetics or an attempted deconstruction of an artwork, we are after all a specialised industry, and as such we require a language for internal dialogue, plus a range of paradigms to work within, just like any other.
But the art world so often shoots itself in the foot by pandering to the worst forms of tabloid sensation mongering, often for no more than a brazen attempt to make money, at the expense of its own reputation.
As you can see, this is one of those subjects that gets my goat - So imagine my surprise when by chance I ended up at a series of talks given by two artists and a writer this evening, the speakers inadvertently gave me a bit more insight what I think is wrong with the art establishment.
Each of the three speakers attempted to define the word 'Vernacular', a word that I have always taken to imply a local expression of some kind that is rooted in a specific place, time and context.
So a vernacular architecture might describe building forms that are identifiable as responding to some local condition, tradition or limitation, forms that vary from others found elsewhere.
If something is dubbed vernacular, I would assume that it is in a highly evolved state, that takes real conditions into account, just as a hand tailored suit (vernacular) is more fitting to the individual than a mass produced one based on some nominal average human ideal. Our vernacular is deeply tied to every aspect of our own local cultural expression
As the evening progressed, and 'vernacular' was struggled with, I realised that there was another more troublesome view of the vernacular, another scheme, that gives a rare insight into just how autistic visual arts thinking can become.
In this scheme of things you must first assume that 'Art' is at the top of a highly stratified cultural hierarchy, every strata below it must aspire to the values that the 'Arts' have codified, and everyone must look to the arts for cultural guidance.
From this 'Arts' centric perspective the vernacular is nothing but an annoying incongruity in the scheme, an unofficial outbreak of un-sanctioned cultural expression that assaults the 'arts' from outside.
But the vernacular also presents a dilemma to the 'Arts', which is after all a system that values the unusual, the vernacular is the greatest, perhaps the only, source of refreshing new ideas.
Think about it for a second, The Renaissance, El Greco, Picasso, Emin, who hasn't imported from the vernacular?
The vernacular has value precisely because it comes from outside, the 'Arts' needs the vernacular to grow.
For the 'Arts' to maintain its superiority, the Vernacular must be seen to be a quirky minority that has been rehabilitated into the mainstream. Once assimilated, it can be allowed to exist in it's original context to impart authenticity, but unfortunately its new found ubiquity will mark the end of its local relevance, and another local identity will disappear.
This version of events is surprisingly well adhered to, even by some arts professionals who really ought to know better but have avoided questioning the system that gives them kudos and wealth. These same people, like the rest of us, live in a 99.9 percent vernacular world, yet when it appears before them as professionals, they throw up their arms in surprised delight, like a king discovering mud.
Is the Arts involved in a project that seeks to normalise and homogenise culture?
As a system the arts operates in a similar way to many multinational corporations, seeking to smooth over inconvenient local conditions and ensure we all receive a uniform global product, that will not vary in quality, regardless of where it is encountered.
Not only does this homogenisation produce art that is global, geographically and contextually uniform, but it also produces art that speaks with a uniform voice, to everyone, whether it makes sense to them or not. It sells a single product line in a voice that is aimed solely at those who can subscribe to its current values, the 'art educated'.
While 'Art' lays claim to being the arbitor of ideas, the precursor of popular taste, the cultural prophet - its often incomprehensible reasoning disenfranchises whole swathes of society from the culture that they actually nourish - the 'arts ignorant' masses, who are well capable of producing their own intelligent vernacular, and were long before art existed.
Of course art is not a centralised organism, there is no 'project', it is composed of the combined self interests of its commentators and practitioners, from which I must admit to have made a living. I have written this because I am increasingly aware that for anybody wishing to be involved in the arts, there is little option but to tow a line that most other industries have identified as unsustainable. The only way to be an artist and to be opposed to globalisation is to become concerned with the local, to become vernacular, to become insignificant. Now I relish that.
-- In the Vernacular Style --
Touching on the aesthetics, status, and politics of the vernacular style, artist, writer, curator and lecturer Stephen Bull, writer and consultant Ted Polhemus, and artist Jonathan Swain explore the significance of this particular aspect of cultural expression from their various perspectives of photography, fashion, and activism as art.
