A very wise man, I believe it was Marshall McLuhan, once said " Art is anything you can get away with...". In the age of life sized chocolate Christs, Reichstags covered in saran wrap, Hanging Meat and ShantyTowns this seems to be an adequate assessment. A tour of the modern art section of Canada's National Gallery can be as demoralizing as it is infuriating as the visitor is bombarded with canvas after canvas of works so simplistic and meaningless that they seem to convey no other message than their creators contempt for the public and a tone of gullibility towards those who would put meaning and value on these half-assed efforts.
Indeed, Ottawa as a capital city, has long been in the habit of littering the town with art pieces that the average citizen would not recognise as art until they were told so. The twisted, rusted heaps of metal resembling abandoned car wrecks that once lined the airport parkway, the giant fiberglass intestine reminiscent of a gargantuan turd which graced Confederation Park or the variously coloured geometric shapes easily mistaken as construction debris fallen from the back of a truck which appeared along the capitals driveways are a few prime examples of this phenomena.
This trend towards trash is by no means new. Picasso himself was a pioneer of pissing on paper and calling it inspired. Pablo must has experienced quite a few moments of giddy disbelief as auction houses battled to bid on his doodles, his scrawls and his misogynist attacks very thinly veiled as art. Andy Warhol was a master of the mass-produced mess-terpiece and Jackson Pollock spewed art out of any and all orifices on his road to being hailed a genius. Today examples of 'drive-by' art abound. Their creators have learned their lessons from these Titans and their works prove that expression outranks expertise. Just Do It. ( The Nike 'Swoosh' being another fine example of minimal effort for maximum return).
As an artist I must be stupid. I think art should be born of effort and a finished work , be it portrait, impressionist or abstract should reflect mastery. The pen is mightier than the sword and the paintbrush is mightier than the pen.
When I was a kid and the summer exhibition came to town there was always the art-stall where you paid a quarter to squirt paint from ketchup bottles onto a small canvas which was then spun at high speeds creating a whirlpool of colour. I better dig those masterpieces out of storage - the National Gallery may be interested...

Art Prince
June 2008