On the first of November 2006, I watched Art School Confidential (2005) on DVD with Carol. I had been
looking forward to seeing this film for months, but the actual film proved to
be a little bit of a letdown. I found its remorseless cynicism towards art
students, art tutors, artists and Art College rather unpalatable. Perhaps I was
in too good a mood when I watched it, and I would have found it better after I
had received another series of art world rejections.
Many of its observations about Art College were true. Yes,
there were a lot of stereotypical, beatniks, hippies, mature mothers
discovering their creative side, angry lesbians, and talentless star pupils in Art
College. Yes, there were classically skilled artists who were over looked
because their work was too traditional, while incompetents who produced gimmicky
pop images were hailed as great. Yes, judgments about what was great art was
highly subjective. Yes, success in the art world required a great deal of skill
in arse-licking. Yes, artists were often self-obsessed assholes. Yes, many art
tutors were burnt out failures more concerned with their own art than that of
their students. Yes, money ruled the art world, like it ruled all other aspects
of life. Yes, artists were often compromised by the art market or compromised
themselves and their art in search for fame, money and sex.
Nevertheless, I found many of
these acute observations made meaningless by the raging misanthropy and bile of
the overall story. As you know by now, I had a great deal of anger in me
towards the art world and society in general. I was quite misanthropic and
critical of the human animal. However, while there were a great many things I
hated in the world, there were also a great many artists and friends I adored.
Yes, the art world was full of talentless opportunistic ass-holes who made me
fall out of love with the art world. However, there were also many very
talented artists whose work brought me joy, delight and excitement. Had ‘Art School Confidential’ shown some of
the heroic and honorable aspects of the art world – like those artists who made
art without greed or lust for fame or sex, or those artists of sincerity who’s
work spoke of our humanity, or those art tutors who inspired and helped their
students become fully rounded artists and better human beings, it might have
actually been a profound film of real depth and meaning.
As
you know, I had spent quite a lot of time in colleges, and looking at student
art, and while most of the art created was god awful, the actual people I had
found were often, sincere, intelligent, open minded and adventurous. Yes art
students were often middle class, pretensions and self-absorbed, but in reality
that did not make them very different from others in the arts. Actually I think
in effect the film was a rather embittered settling of private scores on the
part of its comic book writer Daniel Clowes, whose own psychology I could only
guess at. But there was a general crassness to the plot and writing that seemed
to reveal more about him than his targets. I ventured to suggest that he felt
aggrieved that comic book art was not thought of as great art in the way other
art forms like painting were. But would he ever turn his scorn on middle-aged
comic book artists I wondered? Many of them and those that bought their work –
seemed ripe for satire!
Yet again in
this film, Picasso took a bashing. The cartoon image of Picasso, the midget,
the bully, and the misogynist, was more an indication of the ignorance of the
writer and his audience than a true picture of this genius. It failed to take
into account Picasso's technical genius, his independence, his searing honesty,
his stylistic innovation, his obsessive creativity and the countless times when
he took risks in his art that could have damaged his art market income. Such
bashing seemed to always come from semi-literate, semi-educated and talentless
individuals, who felt embittered that geniuses actually existed. They were too
lazy or stupid or talentless to compete and learn from great art so they
resorted to personal attacks. And so much of this film was little more than
that – cheep personal attacks on the personalities of arty types
Jerome the lead of the film
should have been the hero of the story, but he came across almost worse than
anyone else. Jerome, who was bullied in school, thought that art would help him
get girls and went to Art College in search of the nude life-model girl on the
college brochure. All his attempts at getting girls failed including with the
artist model – he thought that this was because he was not respected as an
artist but it was more to do with his physical and emotional immaturity. His
childish desire to become “the greatest artist of the twenty-first century” was
laughable, not because many artists have not had similar wishes but because his
declaration of it sober in conversation was childish and gauche, especially
since in reality he was such a wimp. I knew that whether you were a man or
woman in the art world you needed to have ‘balls.’ You needed to have inner
conviction, obsessive creativity and more than mere technical skill – you had
to have something to say. Jerome on the other hand was a childish virgin, a
nerd, and a rather stupid character with no inner conviction.
Rather
than single mindedly pursuing his traditional realist style and deepening it’s
psychological meaning (as someone like Lucian Freud had done), he quickly
attempted to mimic the pop images of the classes star pupil (who was an
undercover cop with no art training – yet another poke at the gullibility of
the art world which was supposed to always fall for the naïf.) Had he for
example turned his unrequited love for the nude model into a series of work
about lust, longing and stalking, he might have actually made something
worthwhile. Instead the film ended with him robbing the paintings of an older
artist, which turned out to be the mementos of a serial killer and failed
artist. Even this theft failed to win Jerome critical praise or the girl. The
final episode of the film saw him wrongly arrested as the serial killer. But he
was happy, since while he painted in his jail cell the art world clamoured for
his art and the girl had fallen in love with him. In a sense this rang true.
Most American’s were more interested in celebrity serial killers than in
artists, and many women did seem to flock to such killers in jail. Yet again,
the misanthropy and cynicism of this conceit left me feeling let down.
The sad fact of this movie was that the view of the art world expressed in it was very close to what the average person felt. But it was not how I saw the art world. I did believe that there were great artists dead and alive, who made art for reasons far more complex that fame, sex and money. Great art I knew may result in talent recognized with money, fame and art groupies, but I did not believe that this was the motivating force behind real great art. I agreed that many talentless artists could make small fortunes and gain some degree of fame from producing gimmicky art that cashed in on the current concerns of the art market. But in the long run, such artists I felt were exposed for the shallow idiots that they really are. Finally, I believed that there was such a thing as great art – which could profoundly touch the deepest aspects of our humanity in all its complexity – Art School Confidential was not such an artwork. While its cynicism was refreshing and humorous in parts, as a whole it was nihilistic and contemptible.