“The painting just like every other one in there: meaningless”

Are we all idiots or there should be a better way?

I was having my morning tea and doom-scrolling my Twitter feed when I saw the repost of this guy’s TikTok.

Long story short: he went to the Tate Modern museum in London, and while the security guard was idly staring in the window, attached his own drawing to the wall in the room with Marcel Duchamp’s infamous Urinal and then watched what happened.

Well, nothing really — nobody noticed this “addition to the collection”, neither the awakened guard nor the numerous visitors, who just kept roaming around the big white room, paying equal attention to every piece of art there, sometimes approaching too close to read the description and taking occasional photos.

The moral?

“The painting was just like every other one in here: meaningless.”

Well, that’s a rather funny and daring way to provoke the often high-brow art curators and challenge their attitude towards Modern and Contemporary art and the way it is supposed to interact with the general public, I thought and wanted to scroll away.

But then I saw this tweet reply from a famous and reputable art critic:

And then he added:

Err… I put my cup on the table and reached out to my husband: “Hey, have you seen this vid and this reaction?…”

In fact, I wasn’t really surprised by the rather harsh and apologetic criticising of a young guy, who, in my opinion, asks some rather poignant questions in relation to Contemporary art and its perception by museum-goers. Sadly, it happens all the time.

That’s even a somewhat natural reaction when someone is “insulting”, in your eyes, the things that you love and care so much about. Like, imagine, you lay down a pristine white carpet on the floor of your newly refurbished drawing room and then someone ruthlessly enters with his or her dirty shoes leaving stains of mud in this idyllic setting…

“Why can’t people leave art alone?… Idiots, stay at home!”

Leave art alone… hm. Abandoning this philosophical and, frankly speaking, a perfectly debatable idea for now (the answer would be “it depends”, as always), I’d like to bring your attention back to the most important question:

Are we doing enough to actually connect art and the viewer?

Raise your hands those who at least once had this feeling, that you enter the Modern and Contemporary art museum full of abstractions, expressions, ready-mades, videos and other peculiar media and feel like an idiot.

Like, you had to carefully read (and then re-read) the page-long description (sort of particularly sophisticated torture, written in the minuscule-sized font) to actually start getting the message of an author (or the curator, as this substance gets more fluid the more contemporary it gets).

Indeed, the unspoken code of the plain white walls does not add to the perception of a piece of art for someone not privileged enough to have an art history degree.

Well, that applies to the majority of museum visitors, who bring their money to the institutions that are supposed to enlighten them while doing justice to the outstanding art masters.

It’s quite amusing how one might be tempted to believe that the issue lies solely with the Modernists and Contemporary masters, implying that their artwork is deficient compared to that of the Old Masters.

Ah-ah. In fact, it is an amazing illusion that we get old masters better.

Our eyes trick the mind — we do recognise the familiar objects, the notorious “tree”, “flower”, “mother and a child”, but does everyone really understand what actually makes the Late Renaissance masters different from the Baroque painters? And why you won’t find many still-lifes in the Italian Seicento, while the Dutch Golden Age is blooming with this “low genre” and embraces the vivacious genre scenes?

Looks like, the typical museum experience lacks this immersive part, that would make us see every work in the context of the development of arts and culture throughout the history of mankind.

When every artwork is perfectly visible on this art history timeline, it would definitely add to the understanding of its importance and unique value.

In that case, there would be no issue in directly comparing, for instance, Leonardo and Duchamp, and drawing absurd conclusions about the artistic merit of one over the other.

Since they are both important. I dare say, equally important.

And if so many people don’t get that, it’s not their, “idiots”, problem. It’s the way, the art was and regretfully is presented to the people.

Does it sound like an ambitious challenge of rethinking the museum experience for the future?

Happy are the ones, who would be able to move these mountains!