Vermin Art

Heine once quipped “Dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen”. Clearly he was exaggerating. However, what would he make of this weekends artistic bonfire? One reads in this weekend’s national broadsheets that Saturday witnessed a “Bonfire of the Profanities” as three “artworks” were ceremonially consigned to the flames. The crime: profanity obviously, but profaning against what? Yet more sexualized children? A depiction of Mary Magdalene pissing on Christ? Nay far, far worse. Rather than offend any glimmer of moral order that still shines in this post-(insert preference here) society, the offending works had fallen afoul of a far more odious social order. Art dealers, artists and the judiciary linked hands creating a powerful synergy to smite the dangers posed by forgery to that tender blossom: the fine art market.

While we have been used to both the judiciary and underemployed, village-idiot art critics legitimizing our existence for quite some time now, it is somewhat alarming that they have take to lighting fires again. It seems they are not content simply to hold the bulk of cultural and financial capital, now they must destroy any potential intruder into their lofty realm lest the dementia gets so bad that they increasingly fuck up and buy knock off. That these works were able to get past the gatekeepers and start circulating in the upper echelons belies the obvious: these monkeys can’t tell Krug from Moët let alone begin to conceptualise what art may or may not be.

It also shows all too plainly that this is entirely beside the point. This weekend’s bonfire is simply the upper class equivalent to a steamroller crushing all too many pirated DVDs, although the toffs did serve canapés. Art is no longer of interest as a form of expression to be enjoyed, stimulate thought or constitute some kind of social activity; it is now the preserve of the consumer. Its fundamental interest: certified standing as a tradable commodity. Thus art must be authorized and supervised by an appropriate coterie of legal, professional and economic authorities.

This point couldn’t be made any clearer than in the sentiments offered by one Mr. Lowenstein, whose role in the inferno is unclear, except that he holds power of attorney over the affairs of forgery victim and authorized artist Charles Blackman. Citing a clear win for the forces of order and civilization and channeling Josef Goebbels, Lowenstein claimed “It’s a victory for the artist and it does help to weed out these vermin from our garden”. One wonders what irregularities will captivate their pyromaniac attentions next.

The Colonial