All that rises must converge
I find it more and more difficult to talk about works of art. Not that I have any sort of problem. Certainly not with talking. On the contrary, I find lots of stuff very easy to talk about. Sometimes endlessly. This is about that, I say, and that's about this. But when it comes to art, I just don't know. Perhaps it's just me. Then again, perhaps it isn't. Alain Badiou notes that 'the ideology of modern parliamentary societies, if there is one, is not humanism, Law, or the Subject. It is number, the countable, countability'. Quite. He adds that, under such conditions, art becomes an 'unpronounceable word'. In the place of 'art', what we get instead is 'culture'. And we get it everywhere: museums, galleries, art schools, universities, media and their assorted personnel blare endlessly about survey shows, representation, art today, culture today, cultural studies today, Australia today, good financial planning today, strengthening industry links today, audience maximisation today. Architecture merges with art which merges with writing which merges with publicity which merges with ... As McCamley remarked to me: at the very moment that all this stuff becomes 'necessary', is presented and publicised as 'necessary', a repulsive arbitrariness reigns over all. And arbitrary necessity - let's not be misled - is always the master's discourse. He's going to force you to speak about it.
How, then, do you try to make art in such unpropitious circumstances? In the catalogue to their exhibition, Burchill and McCamley quote G.K. Chesterton: 'It is this silent swerving from accuracy by an inch that is the uncanny element in everything. It seems a sort of secret treason in the universe'. So