I Know a Lot about Art, but I Don’t Know What I Like

Wednesday 7 April
Buenos Aires

Alain is such a ponce. Always talking about how the post-modernist idiom has thrown the contemporary art market into throws of self-referential plagiarism that exposes the void of morality at the centre of not only Western culture but also our society as a whole as well as indeed the human condition. And he always passes up a no-nonsense pint of wife-beater for an appletini or some such*.

So Alain thought it would be good to a modern art gallery. Talk about a clash of cultures. We walked around for a couple of hours before he thought about asking for his money back. There was a nice bench thing that turned into spaghetti though.

I’m kind of over modern art. I used to love it as a kid. After all, walking around a gallery with big splashes of paint over the walls seems a lot more exciting than ponderous representations of historical events that I knew nothing about. Then when at school it turned out I had a natural talent at both representational and abstract art it led me to learning about art history. Knowing the reasoning behind why art is like it is gives it an extra dimension and increases your appreciation of it. But then you realise that any modern art can be given justification, like the hyperbole I wrote in the first paragraph of this post. Then your appreciation of art comes down to simple personal preference. And for me (and for many others) the main focus of modern art these days is either humour, or visceral visual impact. And you don’t need to go to an art gallery for that. Particularly when that is hidden behind the pretence of ideological rubbish. All they need to say is “I decided to throw a big splash of paint over the wall because IT LOOKS FUCKING COOL!!! Lol!” That would be more honest than saying it a representation of society’s ability to blah blah blah and challenges the viewer to stretch his credibility to take what I’m saying seriously...” etc.

I still like Paul Klee though. I think he’s awesome.

Aaaanyway we went to a modern art museum in the morning. It was OK.

We ate in that evening with lasagne and calamari and salad. We met up with Claire (a girl Ryan met on the pub crawl) in the evening. Lu recommended the bar, saying it “explodes” at night. The fuse must have got damp or something as there were about five people there, including us. I was tired. I unintentionally cockblocked Alain. That was kind of it.

*not really