Barnett Newman, Onement VI, 1953. Image: picassotopop.com

Of course, art can be anything…etc etc. But what is great art? Having been to see the Louise Bourgeois show at the Tate Modern in London – great art, indeed – has forced us to re-assess what we consider to be great art. We see and recommend the work of lots of young Canadian artists every week, and we believe in their work, but how much of it is truly great? And how do we define greatness? And is it something that an artist has any control over?

We have long believed that great art stems from an investigation, by the artist, into those deep and universally experienced emotions for which there are no words. The visual artist, effectively, creates through imagery what is impossible to express another way.

Picasso, Self-portrait, 1907. Image: blogs.princeton.edu

There are many, many examples of this, from Van Gogh to Picasso to Andy Warhol to Barnett Newman to James Turrell…to Cindy Sherman to Matthew Barney to Louise Bourgeois, to name a few.

James Turrell, Light Reign, 2006. Image: seattlepi.nswource.com

But what about the conceptualists? Sol Lewitt, Donald Judd, Agnes Martin…?

What about some of VoCA’s favorite artists like Rodney Graham, Thomas Schutte, Wolfgang Laib and Bruce Nauman?

If great art is about emotion, why are so few contemporary artists exploring emotion in their work? You could argue that the very best of them are. Gregor Schneider, for example, whose installations can be truly horrifying.

Gregor Schneider, Die Familie Schneider, 2004 - An Artangel production.
Image: state-of-art.org

Has the rise of art schools transformed from a ‘calling’ into a viable career? Look at the popularity of programs at Yale, Goldsmiths and other schools where gallerists pluck artists for their stables from grad shows.

Since Duchamp, who declared that art could be anything an artist deemed it to be, artists have set about making art from anything and about anything. Post-conceptual art has developed into relational aesthetics and ‘conceptualism-lite’, where art is often little more than a witty one-liner.

Simon Starling, Installation view, Turner Prize 2005 exhibition. Image: tate.org.uk

Art history no longer follows one (white, male) trajectory. There are as many forms of art as there are histories, each equally viable. Gay art, Feminist art, African American art, Outsider art…

Art wasn’t always seen as something that you could decide to do and become successful at. It used to be something that you did, and suffered the rest of your life for.

For more on this, please click HERE.