Naked Lunch

Today we are in Naked, which is one of my favourite cafés to kill time in. Quiet, dark, comfortable, with nice teas and, seemingly, nice things to look at on the wall.

As with my usual approach, I'm just going to view whatever is in front of my when I sit down.

Title: Light Industry

Oil Painting.

Artist: James C Cowland

Price: £225. (This price strikes me as a cost + labour + percentage, as opposed an evaluation of its worth)

It is a painting, roughly just under a metre by half a metre. As is typical with many a contemporary paintings, it is loose in brush strokes, simple in its colour range, fairly gauche looking and.... oh shit... oh no...what's this? Signed? Signed?!

Why does anyone still do this? As a gesture of authenticity, craftsmanship - arguably it is an impotent gesture, that speaks of a lack of self-confidence. It makes the work more about the artist than the painting, as it draws your attention away from the content and towards the idea that you are looking at 'fine art' by an artist. It breaks that '4th' wall (if there could said to be one with painting) and makes it all about the artist.

Seeing that signature strikes me as a really amateur, moronic, arrogant and outdated trope. So let's move on to the subject matter, which is a bit more interesting, before I really do cut my dick off.

Depicted are two young white people, sitting on a sofa in front of a t.v, dimly lit, viewed at an angle. The girl sits behind a laptop, cig in hand. The guy has his hand on his chin. It is not clear (and this is a good thing) as to whether the couple are in a state of ennui, or agitation, or relaxation. As subject matters go, I'd take this over a naked woman made of swirls, but there are some annoying qualities here as well. While the loose brush strokes fit the malaise of the subject matter, the framing of the piece seems cack-handed. There is perhaps either too much or not enough dead space around the couple, and they end up being mercilessly centre-framed. Maybe this isn't an issue really - I don't think its necessarily a legitimate criticism, but it strikes me as a bit...accidental. Just like the subject matter, which would seem... incidental. It's about 'intentionality' really. Which is sort of an art-crime to say. I'm a cheeky art-man, I am.

A brief detour on this point: there is something called the intentionality fallacy, which basically says that the intentions of an artist aren't important when considering a work of art. It's a classic defence in art school to say "my work is meant to be about...". When no one can tell this, and the work actually is very obviously something else, then the artists intentions don’t mean shit. By extension, looking for their intentions can be a dangerous game. A lot of people like to take the piss out of how far people read into works of art, with some hating the idea (the work is what the work is, you gotta like, feel the art, maaan) and others seeing it as the entire point, but investing too much in the notion of a solid 'meaning' or truth to a piece (I think it's about love and death... but I need to ask the artist!).

The reality is, intentionality can sometimes be important, and it can sometimes be irrelevant, and it is often a bit of both, in moderation. It is a boring but honest answer. Certain works just don't require understanding the intentions of a maker. Others have their intentions hidden on purpose, or their makers are unknown, while others are made at random with algorithms, and in a sense have no intention. Some works can be enhanced by the intention. Some require an understanding of an intention to operate successfully. All meanings are augmented by knowledge of intentions, but they can be actively ignored to enjoy an artwork.

In our case, with this painting... I find myself trying to appraise it based on the notion that someone might want to buy it for their home (café culture of paintings and price tags says as much), or that it operates as a work purely for a café audience (it clearly doesn't, the café is incidental), or that is also operates as an advertisement for further work. So intentionality is important here. If the highly complex messages and decisions in the work are mere chance elements, it would make me think twice about collecting, and it clearly wants collecting (for £255). As it happens, these seemingly chance elements also render the painting a bit dumb and amateurish - and not in an intentional way! Unless it's so subtle its genius, but then again you could argue it's too subtle and so fails to find an audience. What a cynical work that would be. Although if this were the case and someone told me, I would suddenly find it pretty genius. Welcome to art!

I'd like to see the other work from this artist, to give it some additional context, but either way, due to the trite painterly style, slightly amateurish subject matter framing, and wince-worthy hand signing, I wouldn't say this was a massively interesting or competent work of art.

One last point - the title of the piece really changes how we might view it. "Light Industry" makes the painting far more playful in its tone. It's slightly sardonic, making the subject matter really work for the title. However, does it really make sense? When has anyone said that working on your laptop at home, looking like a lazy fucker, has ever been light industry? Perhaps the 'creative industries' - an uncritical and yet all pervasive term - would be more suitable here.

To sum up - it's a relatively interesting painting, reasonably executed, and it finds a suitable home in a café (amongst the lazy angst of many a tea-drinker), could either speak to or of a younger generation, and with the title becomes a bit of confusing, if thoughtful, social commentary.

In the context of a café, it's better than most.

So far so good for Naked, so I might have to come back and look at the other works! By the way, the tea is great. The café is really under-used for some reason. I had the special jasmine tea, which came in a clever tea dispensing device, and tasted pretty damn good.

Swirls at Moksha

I grab a cup of tea (Earl Grey, hot) and proceed to park myself in a weird corner thing. I look up. Bam. A painting sits across from me. Normally, like any normal cafe dweller, I would ignore it and keep drinking. Not today. The more I looked at it, the more it annoyed me, the more I began to delineate just how...irksome this thing is.

So, to describe the painting - it shows a tanned naked woman, sitting heel to bum, from behind, on her shins. Dark hair flows down her back to her shoulder blades. You know, it's a classic demure pose. And....and her body is made from giant black swirl patterns, with two giant swirls making up her bum cheeks.

At a glance, this is what people would see, and then move on. Whether or not they thought the painting was good art, I don't know - I imagine they would judge it on whether or not those swirls were pleasing. However, when you study this thing, it becomes clear just how badly made and hideous it really is - its subject matter, and what it implies, is borderline offensive; the construction ignores the rudiments of both painting and drawing. It is in terrible taste, and there are a panoply of down right bizarre creative decisions that permeate throughout.

First of all, the subject matter. This is a very common trope in cafe paintings - naked women, badly drawn or painted. She sits on a background of what looks like a caked mud effect - possibly the best technical element here (a painting of just this technique would be very good) - except she doesn't actually sit on it. She floats in a free space. It's as if the mud is simply a contextual frame for the floating female object to ogle. The caked mud, paired with the dark skin and hair, implies an certain earthy ethnicity. It's that sort of earth-mother-goddess mentality that objectifies Indian or African origin as a sort of natural or spiritualist touch stone. Really though - how colonialist, and how offensive! The swirls that make up the arse, and the reverent halo effect around the female object, helps compound this lurid objectification.

The painting, done in a loose style to imply... what, exactly? I'm sure the artist never really knows when it comes down to loose painting styles. They must know, on some level, that it covers up any intentionality behind the craft and lets them off the hook. The aforementioned swirls are the most obvious visual device used here, but it is not clear why they are used, other than to imply a curvaceousness of the female form, or for some eye candy. It fails on both accounts. Firstly, the female form itself is anatomically inaccurate. It looks as if it was done half from imagination and half from a photo found on Google image search. The torso is too long and the curves are... inhuman.

Loose painting and inaccurate anatomy aren't bad per se - art can use any tool it wants. However, it is clear that for this painting, a thoughtless trope was badly executed to give an overall sense of a beautiful female form. It is clear they attempted an accurate portrayal of a female body, but failed, so it turns the beautiful into the hideous. Alongside this, there is an embossing technique used for the swirls, making the already crisp lines even more stark and blunt. Finally, the hair is a monotone blob with two thick lines implying strands, but failing miserably. So what we are left with is an unintentional caricature or cartoon of a painting of a beautiful lady.

I had come back from the loo and was grimacing at these swirls up close.  I make a break for the exit. On the way out, two more paintings catch my eye - big vagina type things - but they'll have to wait.

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Mini bonus tea review: the Earl Grey was okay. This cafe seems to do some really good teas, which unfortunately I didn't sample. The Earl looked posh, in a nice tea bag, but it was a bit intense on the flavour. A bit like Lord Bergemot himself had arrived.

Hello and Welcome!

So I spend a lot of time hanging out in cafes and drinking tea. I live in Brighton, which means that the variety of tea shops and coffee holes on offer is immense. It’s like a mega sprawl of cafes, each with their own subtle twist on expensive, leafed-up hot water and home made cakes.

I used to really hate cafes,  because I know how much tea costs (I...I make it all the time) - but lately I’ve found myself getting out the house and soaking up the various wifi’s on offer. There is a bit of an arts sub-culture in these places that no one ever talks about. At some point someone noticed that cafe owners would allow people put art on the walls. With no cost to go on the wall, a big audience, and willing, community-centred cafes, this brought about a silent revolution. Twee paintings of lighthouses and deck chairs, placed by the owners of seaside cafes, started to go.  Corporate, post-Friends, late 90’s coffee bean art started to go. Even my local Starbucks has dropped the printed canvasses of smiley farmer types for local wares. Not to say these all don’t still exist - if anything, the true, hardcore versions still do, and they are GLORIOUS (but more on these another time).

So, a sort of gap opened up, and people started displaying art in these places. Yay, says I! more art everywhere! Except.... DAMN... after a while of surveying it all... most of it really is terrible, and most of it conforms to a certain style.

It often feels very amateur, appearing to be Fine Art but without an actual solid relationship with art history and art theory. There are some hidden gems, I’m sure - perhaps cafes have an innovative context to offer? I hope to explore this sub-culture. This blog is about my journey through it all, and I intend to give as honest and readable account of the works I find, while applying a fair critique and appraisal. There is also a fair amount of exasperated snark. You are duly warned about the elevated levels of pomposity.

Strap in and let’s analyse some art!