Noise v. Signal

Detail of installation by Charlotte Moth

Pompidou Centre

Our beliefs –  our true beliefs, I mean, not the sort of rote professions of faith that society demands of us – can be hard to identify, simply because they are the air we believe we breathe, and the solid ground on which we trust we walk. However, it did occur to me recently that for my entire life I have held a profound but irrational belief in the idea of "tempting fate". Profound because it has directed so much of the way I have conducted my life; irrational because, well, it's a pretty insane idea, isn't it? However, recognising the irrationality of this belief is not going to stop me behaving as if it were true; that would be tempting fate.

Equally paradoxically, the idea that art should question our beliefs has become one of the unquestionable core beliefs of contemporary art. No self-respecting contemporary artist is going to stop behaving as if this were true, even though it self-evidently isn't. That is, until some true mould-breaker gives everyone permission to drop the ridiculous pretence that art students have greater insight into the nature of Life, the Universe, and Everything than "ordinary" people. I'm not going to rehearse how and when this belief came about (mainly because I'd have to look it up) but I'm pretty sure all those artists in the Louvre did not have their fingers crossed behind their back as they delivered yet another crucifixion scene to the service door of the cathedral. Neither did Holbein, by drawing the Tudor aristocracy of England with such breathtaking realism, or John Constable, with his endless studies of clouds, intend to challenge anything more than the inability of previous painters to get things right. That  desire to get things right may in itself be quite subversive in an unfair world – the truth will set you free – but that is a different matter.

A camera is quicker...

Hans Hartung in La Musée d'Art Moderne

(I think I'm a fan)

People of an artistic disposition, in my observation, tend to fall into two categories. Consider the way red-headed, pale-skinned folk know, or are advised, how to dress (I recall many such conversations between my mother and sister). Essentially: if in doubt, wear green, and never, ever wear red. It just works, looks right, and is in accordance with some unwritten folk theory of colour. Those who value such practical wisdom are the instinctive artists, the colourists, the lovers of shape and form, often with a conservative preference for "natural" beauty. On the other side, there are the contrary red-headed folk who insist on wearing whatever they like, decking themselves out in red and purple stripes precisely because it's what they're not supposed to do. These are the conceptual artists, whose work is all about transgression, challenge, and rejection of norms, who tend to celebrate the urban and the artificial, and reject "natural" categories (like, say, gender) as constructed impositions on their liberty. In the past, the latter won't have got much work; today, they run the show.

I think this is what can make a contemporary art gallery such a confusing place. It will quite likely be full of work that, like some deeply conflicted and angry teenager, is simultaneously demanding your love and attention while telling you to piss off. Look, I'm turning the lights on and off! Isn't that brilliantly annoying, you boring scumbag? I hate you! Now please give me prizes and money!! Unfortunately, those of us who venture into art galleries (as opposed to the sort of people who own or fill them) generally have a craving for something visually exciting, and are not looking to get an angry lecture from some self-righteous trustafarian on our complacency. However, like the parents of that angry adolescent, we sigh deeply, suspend judgement, and look for something to like. After all, as I have said here before, we should all be alert to that "Hendrix Moment", when something is so new that it makes no sense yet, and seems to be all noise and no signal.

Derain, Le Quai Victoria, 1906-1907

Hard to imagine, now, how outrageous this was in 1907.

Such was certainly the case when Henri Matisse and André Derain hit the scene in 1905, earning themselves the label of "fauves" (wild beasts) which they immediately adopted as an ironic badge of honour. There was an excellent show of Derain's work at the Pompidou Centre while we were in Paris, and it was fascinating to get to see the full length of a painter's career who seemed, like a weathercock, to change styles depending on who he'd been hanging out with – Matisse, Picasso, Cézanne, and many others all seem to have had a transformative effect on him. But there can be little doubt that those earliest "fauvist" works have now moved decisively from "all noise" (wild beasts!) to "all signal" (lovely paintings!). Who wouldn't want to have one of his paintings of London on their wall?

Matisse by Derain

(Whatever is in that pipe, it works...)

Also in the Pompidou was an exhibition of the contenders for the Marcel Duchamp Prize (yes, there really is such a thing, and it is not a gold urinal). Here, I found myself distinctly back in noisy territory. It's antediluvian, I know, but I do like my art to be two-dimensional and framed; yes, well, I suppose I do find it hard to separate "art" and "interior decoration". But I get impatient with large-scale, immersive installation work that can only be successfully experienced in a gallery setting. How is it that white-cube galleries and pitch-black projection rooms are the only spaces where contemporary art can exist? I mean, does any wealthy private individual even have their own installation space? It just seems so elitist, and so completely reliant on institutional support and funding.

Wait... Isn't that an underpass cinema??

(Pompidou Centre video installation)

Anyway, for what it's worth, I did enjoy the work by Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige (core samples from Athens, Paris, and Beirut hung from the ceiling in long glass tubes) who, in fact, turned out to be the prizewinners, though I would have enjoyed it equally as much if it had been a display of core samples hanging from the ceiling of a geological museum. In fact, I think I would have enjoyed it more, because then its aesthetic qualities would have been my own discovery, and I would have been spared the statements of the sociologically and archaeologically bleedin' obvious that accompanied it. As Keats wrote in one of his letters: "We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us — and if we do not agree, seems to put its hand in its breeches pocket." Which is a nice way of saying, "Give me the art, but spare me the statement." Telling me what I should think about your work is just tempting fate...

Ah well, enough of Paris. Southampton awaits!

Paris from La Butte Montmartre