Actors, artists and authenticity

Last winter I was at a New Years Party hosted at my friend’s house in London, a stylish three bedroom apartment in Clerkenwell’s old Vogue headquarters. It was fitted with all the accoutrements of east london living; exposed brick walls, smooth concrete floors, ‘mid century modern’ furnishings with a sprinkling of quirky cushions and the odd art book purchased at IDEA or the Tate. The party’s guests; oxford literature students returned home for the holidays (how was the ball last month?), finger-onthe-pulse couples (one works in marketing, the other does a vinyl dj set) and aspiring artists who moved to ‘Europe’ (“bollocks to Brexit”, consume only filter coffee and cigarettes). Even in the most forgiving of lights, none of us were beating the pretentious allegations, an appellation that plagues the city’s cultural omnivores who want nothing more than to appear ‘salt of the earth’ and authentic. Despite this, most of us are aware of our received pretentiousness, especially when we quote Shelley’s Ozymandias loudly at the pub, or show up in painstakingly curated outfits to the local greasy spoon to discuss Ways of Seeing over beans on toast, and are able to laugh at ourselves heartily. I mention this particular party because of a startling, though not entirely unexpected, encounter.  

At these sorts of parties, ‘catching up with old friends’ is merely the guise worn by the true purpose of the evening - meeting each others’ new significant others. I happened to be unencumbered that evening, so was tasked with making small talk with the newest additions to our group. My negroni started tasting like lining them all up, alphabetically, or, better yet, chronologically in order of their joining the fold, so as to not mistake the business of the matter with any sort of pleasure. I let my better judgement swallow the thought, though I approached my task feeling witty and playful. I ended up sitting next to someone’s new boyfriend at the end of a long, lively dining table.

“So… tell me, how did you guys meet?”
“Well, you know she studies stage production right? Brilliant at it too.”
“Yes, yeah of course! I checked out her Tower Theatre project a few months ago, maybe you also saw it? So you’re at Bristol then?”
“Yeah, Bristol. Well, I’m in the same college, but on the acting course -”
“Acting! Oh, well, you look like an actor!”
“You know what, I don’t like you already.”

The conversation came to an abrupt end. I had committed a fauxpas, worse than speaking dotingly about an ex we all ‘wish she’d ended up with’. Worse, even, than saying what everyone at the table was surely thinking - “you’re not her usual type…”. No, the greatest offence of all. Appearing to doubt someone’s authenticity. Of course, I hadn’t meant anything in the statement - it’s just one of those things you say to strangers. People usually like to hear that they are well suited to their profession, especially glamorous ones like acting. Or so I thought. But a paranoia had obviously set in and ‘You look like an actor’ sounded more like an attack on their integrity than a compliment. You’re a fraud! A fugazi! A phoney!  

I often recount this incident in little bars in The Hague to my art school friends, painting a colourful picture of the life in London that I sporadically return to. However, upon reading Dan Fox’s Pretentiousness: Why It Matters this summer, the anecdote became a catalyst for an exploration of my own into the idea of pretentiousness and of its role within my daily life and my artistic practice.  

“We establish our authenticity in conversation”: Fox touches on how our so-called authentic self is actually a relational identity, corresponding more to how we are perceived by others than an immutable fact about ourselves. My brief exchange with the actor proves an example of this. When a conversation fails to prove authenticity (which often comes to mean virtue), accusations or anxieties about pretentiousness rear their ugly head. As an art student, it is confusing at first to feel sure of what the purpose of studying art at all is. Even if you can be sure that creating is the right path for you, you must still justify to yourself why being at school is different from simply renting an atelier and getting on with it. Over time, it came to my attention that one must figure out one’s own definition of what art is, and what one believes it ought to be, in order to make sense of the study of art. How can one become better at something that everyone disagrees on the purpose of? Or the value of?

I’ve come to think of art as a conversation of sorts. In my conception of things, works of art are either successful or unsuccessful in their conversation with the viewer. A successful work must lead to an understanding of the artists’ intentions, views or feelings in order to be successful, the same way verbal communication succeeds when some transference of knowledge is achieved, or another’s view on a topic is altered, even slightly. An unsuccessful work, therefore, either fails to communicate, doesn’t care to communicate, or perhaps at least seems as though it does not care to communicate with its viewership.  

This type of art provides a steady flow of ammunition for those who argue that artists and intellectuals are part of some shadowy ‘cultural elite’ who are conspiring to trick or ‘pull one over’ on their audiences by communicating in a language only they understand. Unsuccessful works are often confused with pretentious ones because when viewers are unable to grasp the intentions of a work, it is easier for them to make accusations than to attempt to understand. This can in turn lead to an artist turning their nose up at their audience (which only serves to confirm their accusers claims), rather than trying to consider where they went wrong, and how they could better articulate their intent. Unfortunately, as Fox quite astutely observes, “contemporary art is guilty until proven innocent”. So, how to break the cycle? Well, as a viewer, one could practise removing the word pretentious from one’s vocabulary in commenting on a work. Trying to recognize where the thought springs up from. We often project anxieties (that are perpetuated by a vicious class system) onto art that we don’t understand. Denouncing contemporary art, or conceptual art, as pretentious is actually counterproductive in this way, only exacerbating the idea that art is for the educated elite.

Think of the child who struggles at mathematics, but instead of asking for help, messes around in class, and calls his more ambitious peers losers or ‘nerds’. It’s easier than admitting our insecurity - that we are out of our depth, or wishing that we had the gall to try, even at the risk of failing. These labels reinforce ‘us - vs. -them’ populism that seeks to keep everyone ignorant and in their place.  

But how, as artists, can we work in a way that overcomes the pretentiousness allegations? For one, we must start caring about improving, about trying to communicate with - not alienate - our audience. It’s an uphill battle though, and one must first recognize the importance of communication. I spent most of my first year embroidering cryptic T.S Eliot and Henry Miller quotes onto chair upholstery and thrift shop button-ups, stroking my chin and furrowing my brow when feedback sessions resulted in a gallery of confused faces and not a round of applause for my ingenuity! I realise now that presenting works that are opaque was about as meaningful or successful as reading Shakespeare in the original to someone who has never heard a word of English, thinking it’ll make you look very smart. It won’t. In Aristotle’s The Nicomachean Ethics, the virtuous person is equated to the person who lives their life trying to be virtuous. Striving to be good is in itself good, even if we can never reach our end goal, an ideal which may not even be attainable. The virtue of a successful artwork could in this way be seen in the artist’s lived desire to better utilise their medium to convey their ideas, even if the ‘ideal’ of unanimous understanding or praise from viewers is in fact an impossibility.  

The problem for some artists, though, is that they believe that an art work must ‘speak for itself’ in some puritanical sense, as if art works existed in a vacuum. An abstract painting makes some swoon or experience powerful emotions, while rendering others unable to resist the urge to groan “My five year old could have done that!” and write it off as pretentious nonsense. Striving towards a more unanimous response to a work is not what all artists care about - it is more important to them to be able to have a creative outlet and make whatever they feel like, regardless of its reception. While I will not deny anyone the right to their own practice, I might ask them to imagine that an artwork is like a meal. Take a white fish with a side of greens. We could say that the meal is only this - what exists within the confines of the plate. And, fine! It’s a meal. But could it be better? Could it be more fulfilling for its consumer? Say we find a nice Sauvignon Blanc from Sancerre, and enjoy a glass of it with our fish? (Yes, I recognise the irony of talking about wine pairing while trying to debunk pretentiousness - just bear with me).The wine does not detract from the meal, in fact, it brings out the flavours that were already present in the dish, but just needed a little encouragement to be activated. If we expand the parameters of our ‘meal’ to include the wine, we have enriched the meal, perhaps even convinced someone who usually refused to eat fish on principle, of its qualities. If we expanded our work, the abstract painting, to include some context about the artists state of mind when they made it, or perhaps a title that hinted at what the otherwise bewildering lines and colours might depict, we could, without tainting the integrity of the painting, make the work more successful.

Pretentiousness is not inherent in any act or work, so how we frame things can alter how a viewer may perceive the same thing. Attitude is important. The artists who leave their abstract conceptual works vague and puzzling, or worse yet ‘Untitled’, appear to take themselves too seriously. Who must they think they are, to assume that their work should speak for itself, that their audience are entitled to little more than morsels by way of clues to deciphering their constructions? The issue with being seen to take yourself too seriously is that it appears not only fraudulent, but ridiculous, in the face of the utter absurdity of existence, not to mention the absurdity of art.  

But this fact should not undermine the artist’s work, in fact we should let it compliment our practice. The malady of the artist is not their perceived pretentiousness, but rather their inability, or unwillingness to accept the absurdity and incongruity of their process, of life, and laugh along with their critics. In order to make anything that pushes the envelope we must not fear the accusations of pretence that come with taking our practice seriously, as seriously it must be taken. But in all seriousness, we must not forget to take humour seriously! It is, after all, the antidote to ignorance and the elixir of authenticity.  

Fox states; “To understand the artistic process is to accept that pretentiousness is part of the creative condition, not an affliction.” I’m coming to terms with accepting that I may be a pretentious sod who wields only a paintbrush and an arsenal of silly art jargon (the intersection between liminality, unbuilding and decolonial practices) against an army of critics. Nevertheless, in accepting my fate, I can at least join in on the fun. Get in on the right side of the joke.

Seeing as we’ve deconstructed the idea of pretentiousness, I thought it apt to mention Shakespeare again. Feste, the court jester from Twelfth Night, famously warns the rest of the cast “Better a witty fool, than a foolish wit”. If only the actor had learned the lines to this play…