The Shock of the Old

Two weeks in a row now I've missed the "Work of Art" airing, but that's OK, as I find judge Jerry Saltz' recaps generally more interesting than the show was, and they're available online. According to Jerry, "this week’s artist challenge was to 'create a piece of shock art.'”

Ugh and double ugh.

The only justification for art that shocks, in my opinion, is that it reveals a shocking truth and that the artist is sincere in wanting to express that. Otherwise, it's "contrived" in every connotation of the word.

I was doubly glad I missed the show when I learned that Andreas Serrano agreed to be a guest judge. On this particular challenge, and especially for those viewers unaware of his work, this association essentially served to reduce Serranos' entire practice to a one-liner. Really bad choice for the producers and the artist, in my opinion.

Ironically, the reason I missed the show last night was that I had attended the opening at the Whitney with my good friends Amanda Church and Sharon Louden and Vinson Valega (let's call it Shout Out Thursday).

The Christian Marclay exhibition is a gorgeous, super-smart installation that you'll want to visit time and again...trust me on this one (and kudos to curator David Kiehl!).

But that wasn't the ironic part. The irony of missing the episode in which the producers of "Work of Art" asked the young contestants to create a piece of "shock art" is that hanging on the walls of the Whitney's third floor is some of the most truly shocking work you'll see anywhere this season.

Curated by Robert Gober, the exhibition "Heat Waves in a Swamp: The Paintings of Charles Burchfield" is a true thunder bolt of daring spirituality, unsettling yet divine composition, and those colors...my lord, those colors! As one fan perfectly put it "Why do I like the art of Charles Burchfield? His paintings stir up emotions I didn't even know I had!" What could be more shocking than that?

This sense that nothing being made today is anywhere near as shocking as that which came before was also echoed in Jerry's recap:

For real shock, one should go to Goya, an all-white painting by Robert Ryman, a pale grid by Agnes Martin, or an eight-hour Andy Warhol film of someone sleeping.

But this too simply points back to what's fundamentally wrong with "Work of Art." Asking an artist to create a piece of "shock art" is bad enough (is that even a valid term?), but asking them to create something we the audience would truly find shocking in the tiny window of time allotted is unfairly asking for the impossible. It takes time, sincerity, and vision to really rattle people's cages. And it's paradoxical in that the more that rattling people's cages is your goal, the less successful you're likely to be. Asking the artist's to do that was just plain dumb.

Then again, I'm thinking of this from an art lover's (as opposed to a TV lover's) point of view.