But Is It Art?

The British don't really do modern art do they? If you do like it your called a pretentious pseud and if you don't you're made to feel stupid and somehow intellectually challenged by people who accuse you of 'not getting it'.

Reading the online reaction to the Colombian artist Doris Salcedo's work Shibboleth you could be forgiven for thinking that she'd kidnapped Madeline McCann, such has been the level of abuse and vitriol aimed at both artist and art.

The 500ft crack along the length of the floor of the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern is described by the artist, or rather her sponsors, as "a powerful metaphor for the problem of integrating immigrants into European society. "

The 550ft fissure starts as a hairline crack and widens to about a foot across. It cost about £300,000 and took more than six months to complete and Doris said that it involved delicate and intricate sculpting which took place on two continents.

Miss Salcedo, 49, refused to say how she managed seemingly to crack open a concrete floor. She said, "What is important is the meaning of the piece. The making of it is not important."
Asked how deep the fissure goes, she replied: "It's bottomless. It's as deep as humanity."
She added: "I always try to relate my work to tragedy."

Now you either like modern art or you don't. It's like Marmite or Cliff Richard, there's no half way house. Janis hates it, whenever there's a piece on the television about modern art she sits there whispering "Emperors New Clothes." I respond by telling her she's one of those people who only like poetry that rhymes, pictures that you don't have to squint at to see the meaning and lyrics that make sense when you read them. Her response is usually, "Yep, and there's nothing wrong with that."

Of course there isn't and there's nothing wrong with modern art either. One of the more absurd postings about this installation on the 5Live MB's was the idea that art should have to conform to rules and regulations and must exist within certain boundaries. How laughable is that? Can you imagine art only existing within boundaries defined by what went before and was found to be acceptable. Would the Renaissance have happened? Would Beethoven have written nine of the greatest symphonies ever or he would have stuck to what Bach had done. French new wave cinema wouldn't have taken American film noir a step forward and Elvis Presley wouldn't have walked into Sam Phillips recording studio, thereby denying the world the Beatles and everything that followed because he would have accepted that black music couldn't be taken forward.

Art is about the artist expressing themselves. About the way they feel, what they sense, how they interact with the world around them. If we impose restrictions on art then we are imposing restrictions on man's need for free thought and expression and we know where that inevitably leads don't we.