| Description | MB: But when looking at a pile of bricks or an all-red canvas, or something resembling junk all stuck together, what is presented to people as "modern art": is it all a con trick.
DH: Of course not. Painting by Mark Rothko. But it can’t supply us with all our needs, though the theoreticians assumed it could and were supporting movements which went a certain way as they thought this is what history suggested. Go back to the "Bricks" (Carl André’s Equivalent VIII, 1966): they don’t have much meaning outside the context of a gallery, something which is not true of any other kind of art, most of which works anywhere. And it’s not particularly interesting.
MB: But some people have the view that even artists like Picasso are distorting and simplifying in a way that anyone could do. How can people have a chance to recognise the skill involved?
DH shows Matisse’s La Negresse (1952) suggesting that the representation of the hands suggests a fluttering movement.
MB: It may be a brilliant perception but isn’t the execution too simple?
DH: Simple is beautiful if it’s right.
MB pursues the point that people don’t understand the skill required to do what Matisse did and think they could do as well themselves, though they recognise that they could never produce the results that Michelangelo achieved in the Sistine Chapel.
DH: But there hasn’t been anyone else doing what Matisse did. And if it’s because they don’t want to, there’s no answer. Once you go outside the idea that pictures have a magic that can make things vivid for you, there’s no need to defend too much. |
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