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| Café Zeitlos |
Timelessness
once used to be a compliment. It no longer is. Recently I sent a
writing sample to an art magazine. It got rejected. The chief editor
explained to me that my art criticism is “timeless”. The art
magazine focuses on “actuality” he said while asking me to send
in some new proposals that meet this need. I checked out the magazine
to see what he was exactly talking about. An article about a museum
exhibition on Brazilian art ended with the statement that it made one
wants to travel to Brazil. Should the writing about art be like a
kind of tourism brochure, laying out the latest hot spots? A few days
later the chief editor wrote me again: Unintentionally he had deleted
my response with new proposals, could I send it once more? I was a
little baffled because I had not given actuality a real thought yet,
let alone write proposals about it. Only one of these beautiful
German idioms had popped up in my head : “jeden Tag eine neue Sau
durch das Dorf jagen.” (“to chase a new pig through the village
every other day”).
Apart
from my education in history I blame the café in the street for my
inclination towards the timeless. Café Zeitlos is at the corner of
Waldemarstraße and Manteuffelstraße. I've been watching that
mysterious door while drinking my daily coffee in D'Espresso at the
opposite corner, pondering about where this bizarre entrance leads
to. As the case may be, I'm probably under its spell. Also my
occasional job as a tour guide in the museum might have something to
do with it. Not that museums imperatively exhibit timeless art, far
from. Most museums safely and cautiously bet on what happens to be on
“the list”. It's rare that an artist gets discovered by an
institution of contemporary art. Yet inevitably there is art that
proves to be lasting and makes it, mostly a few decades after its
making, into the museum canon. I happen to give a museum tour
addressing the difficult question “what is art?”. I'm in favor of
interaction but for this particular tour I prefer a monologue,
avoiding being irritated by unnecessary exclamations and variations
on the question by the visitor. To make my point I lead the listeners
to my personal highlights of the museum. Since I like a positive
approach I avoid answering the tough question by pointing out its
negative. So throughout these guide tours I came up with a few
guidelines on how to define “good art”.
“Good
art” is, in my opinion, not so much a subjective issue, depending
on the onlooker. There are a few characteristics that define good
art. 1) Good art might at first sight look simple, yet is in essence
multilayered. Actually, I'm a fan of “simple” ideas. 2) Good art
makes one reminiscence for at least one hour. I would love to give
one-hour guide tours focussing just on one art piece. 3) Good art
opens up a space of negotiation. It does not give definite answers
nor does it repeat hierarchies or reveals what one already knows. 4)
Good art displays self-reflexivity, irony, and humor. 5) Good art
avoids a thinking that revels in “either ... or” categorizations.
And of course, last but not least, number 6) Timelessness is
intrinsically part of what defines good art. Good art might have been
made decades ago, yet it does not loose its critical acumen for the
present. As a consequence, art criticism is about laying bare the
contemporary significance of an art work, but it tries also to point
out how it reaches beyond that actuality.
How
to make it on “the list” is a very different discussion, as well
as which strategies art criticism can use to get the ball rolling. Fame
can reach one in unexpected ways. The most exhilarating is maybe to
hover for an instant in its presence and to seize the occasion. My
friend, the painter Ali Mongo got eternalized in a juxtaposition with
Steve Jobs in the San Francisco Chronicle and in that coincidental
confrontation he made a very good point:
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| Steve Jobs and Ali Mongo in the San Francisco Chronicle |