Indifference to Modern Art Rebuffed!!!

(above, Dan Flavin, untitled (to Barnett Newman to commemorate his simple problem, red, yellow and blue), red, yellow, and blue fluorescent light, 1970)


(First, a promise: more pictures of my work's progress, very soon.)

This week, I've been thinking about a statement; one of those statements that at first incenses any artist who works with abstract and/or other reductive methods and techniques...and then, after a while we finally don't pay much attention to it anymore.

I think you know which one I mean: "my kid could do that." Or the popular alternative, "I could do that." Which one they use, I suppose, depends on how derisive or dismissive they'd like themselves to sound.

Normally, I ignore this person, and their statement...only occasionally have I tried to reason with the person based on originality, or freshness, and the prevalent importance of context and authorship in modern and contemporary art, but often this tactic falls flat on its face...kneeling down at the rock-hard Altar of Indifference.

So, having encountered this sentiment once again, last week (towards a Klee drawing, no less), I've been contemplating a more salient, adroit answer; one that comes atcha with subtle fists a-flying...and throws off your quarry. Here's what I've come up with so far:

"You're absolutely right; your child CAN do that. And that's the point...art is no longer about the genius. It is, however, about a fresh tactic; a new voice...albeit one that is in tune (rather than specifically trained). It is the Everyperson making a decision to MAKE ART, and doing it. Your child could indeed do something like this [piece of art]...as long as you remember that it can never be a Klee; it can never be a Pollock; it can never be a Newman...it can only be the product of your child, from your child's particular context. And that in of itself takes it beyond Klee, Pollock, Newman [any other artist so often maligned in this way]...and makes it not a shadow of a master, but a new object by a new person, that casts its OWN shadow. GO...and help your child cast their own shadows...and let them deal with the other shadows they stand in, once they have begun."

Psshew... Hey, where'd you go?...