Emperors without Clothes

A commentary by Dr. M.C. Remund

Baden-Baden, January 3 2010

Did ever happen to any of you to be in a contemporary art exhibition and think: „I can paint that“, or „this installation looks like my garage“, or just „I don’t get it“.

As I walk through modern art museums and exhibitions where paintings are hung upside down, where I can hardly find any harmony in the composition let alone a message or inspiration in the artwork, I am wondering whether I am the only one to feel this way.

I remember walking through empty museum rooms blocked by a thin metal barrier, or wondering why the cleaning service has forgotten to remove the black spot on the floor just to discover later on that was the work of art.

I am asking myself how decadent we have become, and how influenced we are in our taste and sensibility to make them depending on the comments of few art critics who celebrate such works as highest art form and expression.

The most astonishing phenomenon to me is not that these works are exhibited or have achieved fame and a high commercial value, but that most of my fellow museums’ visitors are in awe in front of these works, and admire how a metal line between two walls in an empty room may mean anything beyond being a metal line.  I remember watching with fascination as three elegant ladies obediently took off their Gucci shoes to wear a pair of dubious felt slippers to enter an installation made by a crushed wooden crate where inside a half living room was reproduced. As I was musing that probably a visit to IKEA would be more rewarding than admiring the crushed living room, I heard the “aaahs” and “oooohs” of the ladies inside the wooden crate.

At this point I would like to ask: is anyone ever going to say: “These Emperors have no clothes!”  is ever an art critic going to state that she sees no clothes on these artists, and that such installations, digitally reworked compositions, upside down paintings, sculptures are an imposition on museums, galleries’ visitors.

I have the highest understanding for the cleaning service of a famous museum who disposed a heap of metal and wood on the floor of the museum, and delivered it to the local discharge.

When have the curators of such exhibitions stopped to consider that it is all about the positive emotions raised in the visitors, it is not about the paintings,  installations or “objects”, it is about giving the sense of belonging to the visitors in order to create a sustainable fulfilling art and beauty experience which touches not only the eyes but also and mainly the hearts of the people.