arrogance is typical, which we forgive if it is allied with ability and that important ability is to give us what we do not want, either because we did not realise that we wanted such a thing or because we really do not want it - it is repellent for some reason. It is like a diagnosis of something terminal in society no welcome thing on the individual level and even less so when delivered by an apparent unqualified crank to the body politic. The health of society can indeed be barometered by its response and tolerance of such criticism. The substance of the criticism is perhaps even of less importance than the fact it can be made at all. As long as it is possible to deliver such work then one can have some faith in liberty.
That which fulfils a brief is a kind of food for the eye, we consume it as we consume it, after a while it is gone, even if it persists physically. It becomes a kind of expensive wallpaper - decorative and comfortable and at best an accentuation of the feeling of home, a symbol of status or maybe a landmark within their home. Mostly passed over, possibly a talking point with a new friend. Once consumed it is a ladder that one has climbed and can be dispensed with.
Living with a work, which is a source of constant criticism of yourself or the society you live in or other such thing, like dark parts of the psyche is no easy task - even plastic art can constantly shift. It has noticed you and it does not necessarily like what it sees, it may be tacit, even taciturn but not shy. These works are often referred to as non-domestic pieces and they may rot or achieve museum status but rarely at a time when the criticism would affect someone it was really intended to. The most successful in worldly terms are these kind of works, which criticise the artist themselves and only by extension anybody else, these self-loathing works are perhaps best exemplified by the notorious Emin bed. However, one might ask the question why is the ‘depression bed’ taken to, why is this sculpture so joyless, despite the contraceptives and other paraphernalia of female sexuality and sexual freedom they might buy? Maybe because of the medicalization of the natural impulse to procreate, maybe because of the absence of love in the fabric of the sheets - the ‘unkemptness’ is not the unkemptness of a love nest but rather the tossing of fitfulness in dank sheets. It is an uneasy piece and the extent of the rejection, by the popular press, of the work one might consider is a response to this, to its power to communicate the blues in its greys.
Music needs to make no apology for misery, we understand the why of that question, but for some reason, in other art forms, relating the melancholic just does not sit right with it being in gallery space. We will listern to the blues but we do not want to see them - there is something like living with the thing itself being concious of the image. Charles Saatchi did once have the Emin bed installed in a room in his house which begs the question if it was ever slept in there - did bad house guests receive it as treatment? What was the point of the domestic context for such a piece?
Music needs make no apology for the fact that music, without exception, even pastoral, is abstract. There is an arbitrary relationship between the response to minor and major chords and they are context specific. Rhythm, can be inescapable and seems hardwired to us but the signified and the
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