Vivian Suter, Tintin's Sofa, Camden Arts Centre

Vivian Suter’s exhibition at Camden Arts Centre was my introduction to the artists work, it’s new to me and has helped further some thoughts I was having quite generally about fine art. First off, Suter’s work wasn’t bad, the mark making and colour choosing showed a dexterity and a continued practice of her medium. That being said, this body of work was a good example of artwork that is included in my constant grappling with what makes an artwork good, or worth paying attention to.

It seems we exist in an ever-growing world of artists who, with access to the internet and almost unlimited research capabilities and materials getting cheaper and more available, are consistently going to be brought up to a certain level of skill and conceptual thinking. That makes the contemporary art world different to any other era in the history of art prior to the industrial revolution in the levelling of educational resources. In history, there has always been a rigid hierarchy that has afforded the ability to create art and be learned to a privileged few. This successfully kept the creation and criticism of the art world to a small minority; an in-group, whereas the masses were left outside. There is of course another argument to be had about how late-stage capitalism and the consumerisation of the art market as well as systemic racism, sexism and other prejudices continue to uphold a hierarchy that keeps large groups of people out of the conversation, but for the sake of this argument, I will put this to one side and continue on the notion that even with this truth, there is probably more people internationally, learning about and creating art as part of a wider community, then there ever has been before.

The relevance of this, is the element of competition. If more people have access to art from an informed position than ever before, the sheer volume of artwork being produced goes up, and so does the volume of average or mediocre artwork. If an individual wants to make the most of their time here on earth and only view artwork that truly inspires and educates (even within the realms of subjectivity and taste), they must be savvy on what they choose to see and what they choose to ignore. This means, at least to me, that there is a huge amount of passable artwork that isn’t bad that one can get caught up in, in the pursuit of great art.

Deciding what makes an artwork inspiring or educational is a difficult process, and of course must be tailored to each individual, as art is obviously a subjective thing. But even with the notion that everyone likes different things, I still think it is important to lay out a framework for what we can collectively call skilled, or clever and what we can call lazy, uninspired or unstimulating. There will be lots of disagreements, but it is possible, and in many ways already exists. If we look to something like literature, or cinema, despite them being subjective arts in themselves, there is quite clearly a hierarchy that most critics can agree on in terms of great works. No one would argue that a Dan Brown novel is on the same level as a work of Shakespeare, even though it can be seen as inane to make such a comparison, it’s important as an example of an agreed framework of ‘good’ and ‘less good’.

Although it is often unhelpful to discuss subjective arts in terms like this, we can safely say that the definition of ‘good’ in the context of subjective arts, is what a majority of informed people agree on. I am also aware that this informed group can be prejudiced or unrepresentative of a wider audience, much like the hierarchies in art history I mentioned, but the notion of an agreed definition of quality is key in the wider argument of how to make the decisions in what to study and what to ignore in the pursuit of great art, amongst a sea of mediocre art.

In my own journey of working this out, I have, perhaps momentarily, settled on the notion that a clever artwork might explore many avenues at once. Clearly there is a beauty and a subtle intellectualism in very simple artwork, Modernism shows us this, but as the art world becomes more and more flooded, it seems that to stay afloat, an artist needs to show their ability by demonstrating a multitude of skills simultaneously. This is somewhat similar to the idea that in the past, artists could be completely intuitive, and go about a painting like a caveman, letting loose primal and deep-set emotion, and then leave the academic and critic to dig out the theory and genius, and that now, an artist must be both the caveman and the critic. I would see an artwork that can demonstrate formal ability, conceptual theory and references to other art forms and ideas as richer than one that does only one of these things at one time. As capitalism floods the market with material goods, the consumer is spoiled for choice, and the standard goes up, if the informed consumer wants to be savvy with their purchase, then they might be wise to buy one product that does many things, rather than spend more money on lots of individual products that have one purpose each.

How does this all relate to Vivian Suter? Well I see this collection of her work as a good example of work that seemingly demonstrates one element among many that makes an artwork clever and enjoyable. Suter’s paintings are gestural and abstract, they are on un-primed large sheets of canvas, and are hung all around the gallery in a non-uniform fashion. They show a romantic exploration of material and a conceptually unfettered enjoyment of painting. They are nice in this way, and the bit of information I learned about her accented this quaint image of a happy artist doing what she loves without the weight of heavy conceptual theory, I was told that she left her home of Basel in the early 1980s to live in the Guatemalan rainforest with her mother. She now paints in the jungle and has done so in obscurity until very recently when she was tracked down by a curator who started the ball rolling with her career rebirth.

Now this is all obviously justified and quite pleasant, but it begs the question: ‘Can an artwork that is just about material exploration be enough in the present day?’. With the argument I put forward earlier, Suter’s work wouldn’t pass the test. Why should an artist who works on a simple basis such this be paid any attention when there is an art world teaming with impressive artists that can do this and a multitude of other things at the same time? Is it fair to say that an artwork that does more than one thing is better or more skilled? Do people need this kind of artwork as a palate cleanser after intellectually heavy art? Should an artist be expected to do more with their work in the contemporary art world? Perhaps artwork like this can be seen as an equivalent to ambient music, a delicate and minimalist approach to creating that is as skilled in some ways as perhaps a conceptual rock album that combines technical, instrumental skill, a rigid structure and clever lyricism. With such an open-ended form of art, Suter’s exhibition didn’t provide me with any hard facts, but one thing was for sure however is that I now have many more questions. Perhaps the fact that the show instigated such a chain of thought justifies its subtle existence.