Abstract Art Rant
Hello and good morning everyone, I’m John Bateman and like most sane British citizens I have become enlightened to the greatest con of all time. Who would’ve thought that a scribble, a squiggle and a splat could’ve brought so much pandemonium to the world of modern design? Yes, I am of course referring to the defilement that is abstract art.
The other day I was in my art lesson when, just for a laugh, I asked my teacher what she thought of abstract art; of course she began a tedious moan about how “you can’t tame art; art is FREE!” and how it’s meant to evoke an emotional response. Startled by her reply I soon realised (as I’m sure you do) that I did in fact have a very strong emotional response to abstract art; of utter loathing. It’s usually just a poxy little shape throw onto to a canvas sprinkled with a few blobs and then thrust under the nose of a (presumably near-blind) gallery owner. I mean, how these artists can expect us to relate to their paintings emotionally when they just use simple geometric shapes is a mystery; I’m emotionally connected with my brother and my mum but neither is a triangle nor a cube.
But it’s not just about what abstract art is, it’s about what it represents. I never understood the whole thinking outside the box idea; yes I know that once every one hundred years you need some crazy thinker with typical shaggy grey hair and inch thick glasses to help us on to the next stage in humanity, like the invention of the wheel or the flushable toilet. But for the rest of the time everyone gets on just fine without having to think up mad notions like self-buttering toast or electronic surfboards. The irony of the whole situation is that, these artists (while trying so hard to think outside the box) just end up, at most, drawing a box or some other sort of woeful cuboid.
However, I think the biggest scandal is what abstract art is valued at. The press and indeed the general public assume that the better a product, the higher the price, rightly so. Tragically, this is not the case for abstract art. A piece was sold to even our local gallery the other week for £100,000: it was a blank canvas. Supposedly making us think what could’ve been there, a good piece of artwork could’ve been there! Amazingly it doesn’t stop there; recently an abstract art piece broke the world record for the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction after it fetched $142 Million. $142 Million for drawing a man sitting inside a cube. That’s another win for arrogant artists, corrupt collectors and any another presumptuous prats. To us hard-working people it’s unfair, insulting and frankly immoral that some pompous artist who already has more money than sense should rip off society another few million pounds. How can anyone think that it is worth the money galleries pay for it?
If you actually take a moment to think about what abstract art is, it can only come down to three things: a paint spill; a 2D shape; or a 3D shape. Either way it’s absurd that some ‘experts’ claim that these are quality products, we can all see abstract art for what it is, a shallow, pathetic excuse for a job. I’m certain that even the artists and collectors know this but pretend that they can see something else in the scrawl, trying to make themselves out to be intellectually above us mere mortals. How arrogant is that! I would go so far as to say that abstract artists and the like should be added to the list of the unemployed, as when I last looked up the word ‘Work’ in the dictionary I didn’t feel it applied to them. This is because the definition seemed to suggest that money had to be actually earned in order for it to be classified as a job. Which clearly is beneath these divine artists.
The advice I leave you with today would be that in future, as a whole, we cannot let abstract art to continue to worm its way into, what were before, decent art galleries. Sending these atrocities to them is like sending a model elephant to our community zoo. Preposterous. Thank You for listening.