A text about how to love contemporary art

by Marat Guelman

“How do you love contemporary art?” – is a provocative question. It is supposed to be some kind of bitter medicine, which by right and wrong must be handed to a child. And how to love reading? By forcing it? Make reading a habit?

This text is not for those who defiantly say “I don’t understand anything about contemporary art, it’s not worth it, it used to be…” practically bragging about their ignorance as a sign of common sense. But to those who want to understand, who are intrigued, who are open-minded. For example, to those who bought a dozen works in Soli for the first time, felt the taste, but realizes that further progress should be more consciously. In other words, this is a practical guide for those who are already interested.

1. We need to broaden our horizons, learn about new art

It is impossible to love all art. It is very different and often contemporary artists profess directly opposite concepts, answering the question “what is art?” in different ways. “What is the place of the contemporary artist?” But before you choose what you like, it is important to broaden your horizons. So my first piece of advice: go to survey exhibitions. Let it be “contemporary art in China” or “video art in the 20th century”. – At such exhibitions, curiosity is the main stimulus. It’s like you’re wondering, “What is this Chinese art like?” rather than choosing, “Oh, I’m going to hang this on my wall or not.” Your taste is not the key to understanding art, but rather a lock. Here was something in the textbook “native speech” in the fourth grade, and it became taste! Since then, a person does not perceive everything that does not look like “Russian five” (Repin, Levitan, Aivazovsky, Serov, Vasnetsov). Or he found an Impressionist album as a child and compares all the artists with Cezanne. That is, any person’s taste is not initially developed. He is looking for the familiar. Developing taste is work. Sometimes not even for one viewer, but for the collective vision. A textbook example – today in architecture “rusty iron” is very popular and using it to create very aesthetic buildings, but it was Italian artists ArtePovera and especially Janis Kunnelis who taught the world to see the beauty of iron, charcoal, raw, rough surfaces. you have to get acquainted with everything, and then there will definitely be a favorite.

2. Get away from the question, “Is it art or not?”

You have to stop agonizing over whether it’s art or not. Just perceive the work of artists directly. Interesting or not? Impressive or not? Makes you think, turns on your imagination, etc. In general, “art or not” is a false question. When we did the exhibition “Russian Poor” in Perm, where we collected works by great artists, but created from throwaway materials. The first reaction of the public was: “How cool, but it’s not art, because…” – and the arguments followed. However, once this issue was removed (how is a separate story), this exhibition and the artists participating in it became a favorite. The question of what is art and what is not is posed by artists every second and the boundaries are constantly shifting. Some people think that only talking about borders, only borderline works, is real contemporary art. For the viewer, this is a speculative question. We should be open and happy to see art in every gesture of the artist.

3. Become a co-author

I continue the story of the “Russian Poor” exhibition: among the arguments of the thesis “why this is not art”, the first place was “I can do it too”. But after a while Permians began to send pictures of their own “handicrafts”, asking: “Is this art then?”. This is very important, the transition from “I can do it too – it’s not art” to “I can do it too, I’m an artist too”. The point is that, unlike artists of past eras who tried to maintain a distance from the public, leaving the audience only the opportunity to admire (I’m a genius and you’re a philistine), the contemporary artist has stepped down from his pedestal and speaks to the public as an equal. And the main thing is that he also leaves the public a part of the creative work. Therefore, the third piece of advice fully sounds like this: become partly co-author of the artist’s work, find a creative impulse in yourself. For example, many minimalist projects assume in the viewer literally equal partnership with the artist. In fact, this is a long-standing game where the viewer “guesses” the continuation of a line and completes the image in his or her imagination.

4. Attend “mega-events”

Of course, no one likes to feel like a “sucker”. In the past, up until the 1960s, there was a clear system of criteria. It may have changed, but those criteria were easy to navigate. Good art is like this, or like that. Where is the composition? Where’s the golden ratio? And so on… Then suddenly all the criteria were, due to their frequent change, destroyed. And it is possible to separate the good from the bad only by seeing the work in the context of other works – those created in previous eras and those created by contemporaries. I have written before, Art has ceased to be “criterion-based” and has become “contextualized”. Criteria can be studied, and contexts can be immersed in. So my fourth piece of advice is to start attending mega-events that show a lot of art at once to get a sense of context and feel like a connoisseur. If you go to two Venice Biennales in a row, one Documenta and a couple or three fairs, you feel like a connoisseur. You recognize the authors, remember the names. You compare, evaluate. The two main joys of a viewer are to recognize the familiar (I remember this artist, I saw his work there and then) and to discover the new (I think this is something completely new, I haven’t seen it before).

5. Take an interest in the background

I will retell one sketch from the artist Dmitry Gutov, which I think may help someone to love contemporary art. A few years ago in Moscow there were huge lines to the shroud of Jesus in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior? Basically, it’s a dirty old rag. Nothing beautiful or clever about it. But there is a powerful, authentic story behind it. That is, the artifact itself – its aesthetic properties – are not important in this case. It’s the background that matters. People will stand in line at night, kiss the rag, and fall into euphoria at the mere thought that Christ touched it. Of course, for us (those of us who are into contemporary art), art history is an incredibly important part of human history. It is no less dramatic than the history of wars, the history of religions. And so it’s admirable sometimes to see how much a work of art has changed art itself. And when we talk about Marcel Duchamp, Kazimir Malevich, and Van Gogh, we keep in mind what a great contribution they made, how much they influenced other artists.

6. Communicate with artists

This point is important because this is my case study. Sixth tip: you need to communicate with artists, they are very interesting. It happened to me that working in the theater as a student, I first fell in love with artists as individuals, and as a result I fell in love with their art. And then, being a gallerist, I always said: we work with artists, not with objects. My main advisors were the artists. The first six years of the gallery, every month a new exhibition, I had 50 teachers. You can start with those who are around you. Understand them. But here I especially advise Yuri Albert – with his art he poses questions “on behalf of the viewer” and answers them.

In Montenegro, we organized “open workshops” on Sundays: we gave artists workshops for free, but on the condition that on Sundays they open their doors, receive visitors, and do mini-exhibitions. So one visitor, a German in his 60s, comes up to me and says, “I finally understood this contemporary art. It’s so cool!” I ask him, “Didn’t you go to museums?” He replies: “How could I not, I went a lot, but I never once talked to the artists.” It is very important to know, to learn how to identify the artist’s idea.

It turns out that museums have become a kind of “partition” between the artist and the viewer. The number of viewers has increased by an order of magnitude in recent years, but there is no understanding. So we need to communicate with artists.

7. Spend money on art

A man loves himself. Almost always. So one way to love is to “invest”. And my seventh piece of advice is to buy art. When I was a museum director, we had one client who wanted to make a gift to the museum for mercantile reasons (to meet the governor). I gave him a list of names of artists whose works we were interested in, and then he could choose for himself. It was the first time a person had to choose art and pay real money for it. It turned out to be a very difficult task, but as a result, the works of the artist he chose became the beginning of his personal collection.

8. Of course, there is also a direct way – education

From childhood, go to museums, listen to lectures and the like. But this is not interesting advice, because it is already clear. But it is especially effective where your ideas about art come into conflict with what you see. I, for example, first encountered the works of Ilya Kabakov in 1988. Now and for a long time we have been collaborating with him, but back then, what I saw was the exact opposite of what I understood by art. To put it conventionally, Yevgeny Karas would not have let his graphics into Ciel Sol. Like all Soviet intellectuals, I loved the Impressionists. Of their contemporaries, I loved open painting, so that you could look at large strokes for a long time, enjoy the occasional splashes of paint straight from the tube and then Kabakov’s dry drawing, under the ruler. But people around me said it was “Russian number one” and I doubted myself enough to go and study. I mean that it’s cool to study not at school, but as an adult, when “life made you do it”. How deep to dive, to study – this question, of course, everyone decides for himself. Just as some people use an airplane, not exactly understanding some mechanisms that make a heavy machine soar above the air. But for others it is fundamental: to understand how an airplane works.

9. Embrace the modern together with the person you like

It’s a very good idea to watch art with someone who loves art and who you like. A Virgil of sorts! I gather such groups of friends and acquaintances, and we visited the Venice Biennale and Art Basel together. The important thing here is not to argue with what you hear, but to understand it. Even if you don’t always agree, but understand. It works very well.

10. Stop comparing past and present in art

As they say, “Last but not Least” – we should stop contrasting the art of the past and contemporary art. “That was then, and now…”. Art belongs to time, it reflects time. To love contemporary art is to love yourself, your life. I just guarantee you that the life of a collector of old art is much more boring and monotonous than the life of those who collect moderns. There is simply no better hobby.