Talkies are spoiling the oldest art in the world – the art of pantomime. They are ruining the greatest beauty of silence. (1929)
Morning Whim
Having bumped into these words by Charlie Chaplin today, I just thought whether I think the same in the field of visual art, namely in painting. Did conceptualists with their protest against the tradition ruin the painting?
In a case, when the skills of painting, experimenting with the colors and forms, varying with the composition and at the same time staying within the limits of beauty becomes unimportant, and the idea of the work becomes the God of the whole work, in that case the painting is dying. Everybody becomes an artist and even those, who don’t guess about it. If Venice biennale can win an artist who still was a complete stranger to the world of art just a year ago, or the Turner’s prize got an artist who just imitate the project of the Britain activist Brian Haw, we have all the reasons to say that it’s the death of the painting that doesn’t belong to mainstream at all.
We live in time when everybody has a right to do whatever he or she wants. If you are fond of installations, go ahead, if you want to create the political art? – you’are getting the green light for it as well if you don’t happen to organize your actions in Russia, if you are for painting in a realism, impressionism, abstract or surrealism style – go for it. The main is to stay yourself. Don’t try to get to the mainstream if you are not interested in fields, techniques and subjects that are just in.
Are there any experiments with the silent films and pantomime these days? Of course, but we don’t hear about them that much, it’s not a mainstream
