He looks like someone who has just emerged here, through a magic portal from another world- but really he’s just a middle aged man having his picture taken in front of a work of “conceptual art” in a museum.
“Conceptual art”- this term covers any number of things that are exhibited as works of art, usually things that don’t fall into any traditional category: sculpture, painting, jewelry, furniture etc.
“Conceptual art” can be almost anything- a pile of leaves glued to the floor, a room full of mud, a dead cow hanging from a construction crane, a washing machine filled with blood. The idea is, that a work of art is not a physical thing. Art consists of the feeling, the “concept”, in the artist’s mind. The actual objects on view are there, not for themselves, but only to lead you to this concept.
It’s not a new idea. A hundred years ago, the French artist Marcel Duchamp exhibited an ordinary urinal as a work of art at a major museum. The public was outraged; Duchamp became famous; and other artists were encouraged to do similar things.
In this case, the work is a large frame of white and yellow lights, illuminating the space behind them in a corner of the gallery. The “concept” behind this is unclear, but at least it’s more attractive than a dead cow.
The man in front of it seems to like it, because it makes a strong frame for his own presence in the picture. He looks like a rough, brutal kind of man, possibly a construction worker who beat his way to the top with the help of gangsters, and now runs his own company. He sends his children to the best schools.
That’s his daughter, taking the picture. That’s his son, off to one side. Years ago, he tried to teach the boy to fight. “Don’t stop hitting them when they cry”, he told him, “keep hitting until they bleed”, but it didn’t take. And now his children dress him decently and take him to the museum and take his picture, framed by “conceptual art”.
And it all works out: A rich thug, proud and scowling, emerges from the outside world into a museum- through a bright halo of fluorescent light. That’s the real concept. It makes it clear who’s really in charge. It’s an artistic statement that everyone can understand.
