I read the title twice out loud. It sounded weird- riveting i would dare say- something to grab the Modern reader’s attention. Success.
Modern Art is without a doubt corrupt. This is my opinion. It has lost the essence of transcendence and beauty. Deconstruction has dismantled the rules and the outline for beautiful art. Anyone can be an artist. Think of something then flip it on its face. Take a picture of the angle that is usually ignored; the headlights of the car, the can opener, and the electricity wire box. And taraa you are an artist. Of course, I don’t intend to disparage modern art in this manner, for whether it is Van Gog or Picasso they have started an innovative undertaking that ended up in the swamps of the route of Modern Art.
However, let’s try to look at the positive side of things (or actually it is the negative side): What is the purpose of this work of art? Is it really “Art for Art’s sake” or does it serve a deeper goal that is hidden among the pages of funky bright neon colors covering a belly dancer or a picture of piss?
I believe that Modern Art indeed serves a purpose in that it is a witness to and a manifestation of the ugliness of the current condition of the world.
Things Fall Apart. The center can’t hold, W. B. Yeats has said in the beginning of the last century. God is dead Nietzsche informed us. And Sartre realized the overwhelming and jarring perception of being reduced to a meaningless existence. So Modern Art reflects this spirit of destruction and infertility that has been woven in the fabric of the Modern Society. Whenever I look at Duchamp’s famous Urinal, I’m reminded of its ugliness and the world’s ugliness. What does Duchamp mean by this work? What does Derrida mean by deconstructing art? What does this Urinal want me to think? What should I think? What do modernists think? I freak out and as specks of perspiration slide down my back, I am reminded that I really hate this feeling and I really don’t like this work of art. I have this deep urge to try to better by trying to read and know more about Traditional and Classical art, an urge so common in the age of lost absolutes and scattered morals.
The stage that Modern Art has reached is inevitable. It is actually necessary to regenerate hope and creativity.
AICHA BINT YUSIF 