Good art, so it is said, should reflect life. Yet speaking as someone who regards with suspicion anything more outré than paintings of steam engines or kittens playing with balls of wool, I’ve always found modern art to be a bewildering world. A vase of sunflowers by Van Gogh or an impressionistic representation of water lilies by Monet may just about be within my cultural compass, but what of a shark preserved in a tank of formaldehyde, or Tracey Emin’s notorious installation Unmade bed, complete with rumpled sheets, used tissues and smelly trainers?
Are such confections really art, or merely a demonstration of the maxim that nobody ever went broke by underestimating public taste? Somebody obviously thought Ms Emin’s creation was the real deal, for they’ve just purchased it for a cool £2.2 million (Dh13.9m) at auction in London.
Yet far from proving the most extreme example of modern art on offer in the sale, the item proved to be decidedly mainstream. For alongside was a work entitled Thirty seconds on, Thirty seconds off, consisting of an empty rectangular space in which various filament-driven illuminations activated in strict rotational sequence. Or in other words, a bare room in which various light bulbs flicker ... well, the clue is in the title.
The work was the brainchild of British-born experimental artist Martin Creed. Anyone wishing to purchase the installation would get neither the room, the switches, nor even the light bulbs for their money. What they would get is a certificate from the creator confirming the authenticity of his concept, and permitting the happy owner the right to recreate it for themselves in a room and with bulbs of their choice.
The reserve placed on the item was £50,000 – a sum sufficiently insane in itself to impel most sane individuals to want to lie down in a darkened room, if only they could find one that didn’t have lights flicking on and off.
Defending the work, the gallery’s director explained: “The artist creates 50 per cent of the work, and the other 50 per cent you create yourself. He gives you the idea, and you create the dreams, the poetry, whatever you want.” Yet to the horror of those few rarefied souls who appreciate such genius, the item failed to reach its reserve and was withdrawn.
Later the same week, the boundaries of modern art were pushed to even more Kafkaesque proportions when a painting by artist Darren Udaiyan appeared on the website of art collector and millionaire businessman Charles Saatchi. Iraqi-born Saatchi was, until recently, best known for being the country’s leading collector of modern works, as well as its most powerful standard bearer. That was until he was photographed last year in an elegant Mayfair restaurant with his hands around the neck of his partner, celebrity chef Nigella Lawson.
You may have thought that Mr Saatchi would have wanted to put this unsavoury incident behind him and move on. Not a bit of it. The painting that appears on his gallery’s website, SaatchiArt.com, offers a garish (and instantly recognisable) visual depiction of the grisly assault.
What was even more shocking than Mr Udaiyan’s explanation for his painting – namely that it symbolised Mr Saatchi’s stranglehold on modern art – is that Mr Saatchi allowed the item to appear on his website in the first place. Defending the appearance of the item in such a sensitive location, he told one reporter: “Would it be a better story if I censored the work of artists whose work might be personally disobliging?”
As with everything, perhaps the simple moral is that beauty is always in the eye of the beholder. Using this as my guiding principal, I have decided to enter the world of art. Not by selling my unmade bed, or by having my wife throttle me in public (both of which are daily occurrences around here), but by offering up an entirely new creation that I’m hoping will make my fortune.
Entitled Thirty seconds wet, thirty seconds dry, it’s formed by turning on my garden sprinkler system, which dispenses plumes of water to my shrubs and bedding plants in a strict sequence. Any takers? Not for the work itself, of course – I can’t give that away, otherwise how would I water my begonias? But I will give the lucky bidder a personally signed certificate permitting them to go to their local garden store and purchase an identical machine.
What am I bid? Shall we start with 10 grand?
Michael Simkins is an actor and writer based in London
On Twitter: @michael_simkins