Introduction: You may think that being a visual artist actually requires some, you know, artistic talent. Vision, even. It’s an honest mistake – many art movements in the past had a high regard for creativity. In fact, some even required it.
However, postmodern art’s dirty little secret is that having something original to say actually gets in the way of your next gallery opening. Developing an original idea may take years, even decades, but you want to become a cause celebre right now! As there is to every successful art movement, there is a formula to current art which, once you know the rules, is so easy to apply even a beginner like you can do it!
RULE #1: choose your materials carefully.
In the past, people created art with clay or canvas. How quaint! Now, people create art with a wide variety of materials, including urine, blood, concrete and meat. Yes, you heard me correctly, meat. The difference between you and a visual artist is that when you sit down to dinner you see a steak in front of you, while the artist sees a 10,000 word essay in Art Forum.
The trick of going the body fluids route is to put them in unexpected contexts. To see if you have a postmodern sensibility, ask yourself this simple question: is urine better in a toilet or in a jar with a religious symbol? Don’t be too quick to answer; a $10,000 NEA grant could be riding on it.
RULE #2: use the most divisive social issues as the themes of your art.
Time was you could be controversial just by painting coloured boxes on a 20 square foot canvas. Oh, for those more innocent times! Now, if you don’t create images of black and white men kissing while nuns kill fetuses, you just won’t get noticed.
You say you haven’t kept up with the most divisive social issues? That’s perfectly understandable – you’re an artist, not a political scientist! If you have any doubts, ask a Mormon what the right way to live is, then do the opposite. If no Mormons are available, try a newspaper social etiquette columnist. Failing that, throw a religious symbol like a cross or a cartoon of Mohammed into the orifice of your choice and watch the column inches of your coverage grow!
RULE #3: explain yourself using obscure verbiage.
Remember: the most important thing about modern art is the idea behind it. If people understand your idea, you lose. Fortunately, there are many ways of ensuring that this does not happen. Be sure that every second word in your exhibition catalogue is 10 or more letters long, for example, that you use Scandinavian words without telling anybody what they mean and/or that you do not use the letter “r.” (Using all 26 letters of the alphabet is promiscuous, even decadent.)
By expressing yourself as obscurely as you can, you will make people who are not artists think your work is profound, guaranteeing sneering reviews in The Times.
RULE #4: an artistic life should be your greatest creation.
As a hip, happening artist, your greatest work will be your life. This is a problem for most of us, since, if our lives were a reality television series, we would be canceled after the first commercial break. Fortunately, you don’t actually need to have a life to be able to project having an artistic life. All you need is a publicist.
Seriously. You think you’re going to McDonald’s for a burger and fries? Your publicist will tell journalists that you’re actually making a postmodern comment on consumer society and the obesity epidemic and…and the Hamburgler. Artistic wannabes need to be seen in the right places; true artists make wherever they are the right places to be.
RULE #5: be flexible about interpretation.
You might have thought your painting depicting small children being ground up in a blender was about the destruction of the innocence of youth. What do you when a journalist asks you if it was a postmodern comment on consumer society? Say, “Again with the postmodern comment on consumer society schtick? Don’t you have anything else to say about art?” Of course nor. The artist wannabe will spend 20 minutes trying to explain why the journalist has misinterpreted her work. The true artist will compliment the journalist on his keen appreciation of modern art practice.
RULE #6: when in doubt, call it performance art.
This shifts attention away from what you have produced – or, perhaps, the fact that you haven’t produced anything at all – and towards the process of creation – or not. Declare your studio a “machine for creativity” or, even better, a “computer for creative camp.” These days, digital metaphors rule.
Conclusion: oh, sure, at some point you will actually have to do something with your art materials, even if it is only stacking them in a pile in a corner of your loft. That is why most truly gifted visual artists are surrounded by interns. There’s no point in actually making something when others are willing to do it for you just to be in your exalted presence.
And, frankly, it beats using your own blood.