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Yet Another Exhibition Opening
“Art is the pleasure of a spirit that enters nature and discovers that it too has a soul.” —Auguste Rodin
Although this bourgeois slum is flush with cash,
No decent man could ever make the rent;
So Thursday nights the galleries present
The latest styles in bland subversive trash.
Here shameless exhibitionists parade
Their philosophical banalities
To twits with ersatz personalities,
In vain and desperate hopes of getting laid.
They foul the walls with artless effluence,
A crass assault on beauty, wit and taste
Of worth to none but those with wealth to waste
On dumb, grotesque displays of affluence.
And over this pathetic scene presides
A priestly caste of po-faced propagandists,
Drug-money launderers, and smug misandrists,
Applauding as our culture suicides.
Whilst quaffing down my third or fourth free drink
I wonder what Auguste Rodin would think.
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Shaun C. Duncan is a picture framer and fine art printer who lives in Adelaide, South Australia.
Shaun –
Yes, you are so right. Please take a look at the virtual 5oure of my work available on this site. And let us see more of your poems !
Thank you Sally. I have been reading this site on and off for a couple of years now and have admired your work – particularly your tribute to Leo Yankevich (who first inspired me to attempt poetry) and your piece on Whitman.
I think we probably see eye to eye on the art world. I am not a painter myself, but I have a fair bit of experience of the gallery scene as a framer and photographer. Fortunately I don’t have to deal with that segment of the industry anymore, but it’s moral and aesthetic corruption has been a rich source of creative inspiration.
Yes,k it is an industry all right ! My best collector takes an artistic approach to collecting. Because of this, many views him as the best one in the area Once he has made a choice, he dickers on price, but not all that much, and once he buys, he becomes yoiur friend/ It is like a dream come true. He calls regularly to. ask for rationales as to why you made the painting. If you have reviews or catalogs, you may give them to him and be assured they will be preserved in your file. This is what I think of as a real collector.
To give you an idea of the range of his taste, some of his favorite artists are Franco Minet, George Grosz, and Sally Cook !
I would like to see more poetry about art at SCP. Thanks for sending your poem; I will be watching for more; and for comments on my submissions as well..
There’s no “reply” button below your most recent comment so I’ll just go back and reply again to the first and hopefully things don’t get too confusing!
Good collectors are an absolute godsend to artists and I love dealing with them as a framer because they appreciate quality work, they don’t quibble about price, and they never ask me to do anything that would risk damaging the work in the name of aesthetics. You’re lucky to have one who obviously sees your work as being more than just a good investment.
I will certainly be contributing more poems to the SCP in the future and there’s more I’d like to say about art. I’ll try to comment a bit more too, though I tend to be a lurker by nature.
To my mind, the galleries I visit are half and half with stuff I like and don’t like. Not all old stuff is great, and not all new stuff is rubbish.
I’m sure back in the day much the poem’s observations ran true.
Thanks for the read, Shaun.
Back in the day, Paul? Shaun never said that all art produced today is trash, though much of it is. Do you expect him to write a poem about the fraction of contemporary art that is worth looking at? Now, that would certainly give us all a thrill!
Thanks Paul. The piece is about a certain segment of the art world, which the general public is almost completely estranged from but which none-the-less dominates the academic discourse on the subject whilst serving as a money-laundering operation for corrupt members of the upper classes. I see a lot of art in my professional life and much of it is indeed very good and made by talented people with genuine integrity. Unfortunately few of them will ever be exhibited at the major commercial galleries.
Dear Shaun –
Was just wrapping up a somewhat lengthy response to your much appreciated comments on some of my poems , when the entire thing disappeared. So if you receive the garbled version, just toss it aside and accept the fact that my computer is insane, and that I will try again in the AM.
In the meantime, glad to hear Leo Y.’s name come up, as I consider him to be the best poet of the 20th century and Whitman the worst of the 19th.
Incidentally, as Dr. Salemi has invited you into TRINACRIA, I most heartily concur. You could not have a better friend !
Wow! A top-notch sonnet on the aesthetic degradation that we face today. Mr. Duncan, can I have this excellent poem for the next issue of my magazine TRINACRIA? If you are willing, just ask Mike Bryant or Evan Mantyk for my e-mail address, and contact me.
I’d be honored – I’ll be in touch.
Though I would not call it a sonnet, Shaun, you have nailed down the prosody and nailed the idea.
Thank you. It sat around for a couple of years as a failed attempt at a sonnet, but I recently decided it would work better with an extra stanza (the third) to flesh out the idea a bit.
This powerful piece speaks with poetic panache on the “crass assault on beauty, wit and taste”. It reminds me of the Summer Exhibitions at the Royal Society of Arts in London… those feigning exuberance over “We Have Lift Off” (a scrawled cartoon monkey wearing a space helmet by Tracey Emin) were more entertaining than the laughable piece on display. When I say “laughable”, I honestly think tears would have been more appropriate… you have captured the wicked shame of this abominable facade. The closing couplet sums up the madness perfectly. Thank you, Shaun.
Thank you Susan, and thank you also for the kind comment you left (which I forgot to respond to) under my last poem.
It is laughable, if you’re able to put aside the sense of injustice which most people would instinctively feel when confronted with such nonsense. For all their sanctimony and self-importance, it’s remarkable how much open criminality goes on the contemporary art scene, from overselling editions to money-laundering and much worse. I’ve often commented that if it were any other industry – anything that actually MATTERED – people would be going to prison.
The mere fact that talentless nonentities like Basquiat and Keith Haring now command prices in the millions is proof that the entire thing has become a racket, with cynical investors buying patent garbage just to flip it for more cash, or to launder dirty money.
Haring is a great example and Hunter Biden’s recent success adds a new dimension to the grift. Then there’s the matter of certain “transgressive” artists catering to the specific and eccentric tastes of wealthy collectors, but that’s a subject for another poem.