The problem with titles
It’s not often that I get a bad taste in my mouth when reading art criticism. I’d like to say it’s the quality of the writing, but it might also be the sliding definition of criticism that we encounter in mainstream papers these days. The second is a tale for another time, today I’m concerned about Christopher Allen’s weekend collumn from the Australian. It’s pretty well known that Allen is not a huge fan of contemporary art, in this weekend’s collumn he goes further, suggesting that, as was the case with the art movements of the past one hundred years, “most of what is now promoted and taken seriously will be left like flotsam and jetsam on the beach”. Cue: bad taste. 
I think there is a difference between deciding to dismiss something at the outset, and allowing it time to mature, and possibly prove itself to certain sceptics. Allen does mention a few contemporary artists that he likes, Nam June Paik and Bill Viola for example. In his discussion of a so called crisis of direction at the Art Gallery of NSW, Allen notes an increasing focus on contemporary art. Here is the problem with titles - contemporary is taken to mean now. Art made right now. Today. But the examples Allen uses are from last century, though Bill Viola is still making works, it is the date of these examples which is important. Galleries are no doubt working with this meaning too - albeit given little choice.
It may be that the Art Gallery of NSW is seeking to be more contemporary, and they might think of contemporary as what was being produced by artists at the end of 20th century. I do not think of contemporary in this way, but realise, as a minority I should probably change my point of view. So, to be clear, I think of art being made today as current art (not a great title but hey), this accurately accounts for the recentness of the work. It also creates a distinction between art of last century and art in the first decades of 21st century.
I reviewed the Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art’s recent exhibition ’21st Centruy: Art in the first decade’ a while back - it was such an important exhibition in terms of the titles we give current/contemporary art and the way it legitimates art made today, perhaps in a way that Allen hadn’t/didn’t consider. The only way to know if something will prove itself, will stick, is by allowing people to see it, review it, take part in it, as exhibitions like this one did. I would go so far as to say that a very democratic policy for audience participation would speed up the process - and I mean specifically the way that QAG/GoMA have made their exhibitions of current art very accessible. After all the more we look at art, the more we will appreciate something in it.
Image: ABC’s story on GoMA as the most visited gallery in Aus.
