Two balconies, two hotel signs installed on a white wall. I’m entering the Juan Muñoz retrospective at Tate Modern and I’m already feeling anxious. There is something about the Spanish artist’s work that upsets me, a feeling of deep melancholy that I can’t shake off. As I go through the rooms inhabited by disquieting dummies, vitrines and wax figures the feeling grows. Will I ever be able to understand Muñoz? By the end of the display I fear it will never happen. A week later – and after reading most of the exhibition catalogue – I go back to the Southbank. This time I seem more permeable to the works, knowing details and background helps me to understand what’s behind Muñoz’s art, or, at least, it helps me appreciate the meaning.
It all boils down to different perspectives on art, and on what art should be. I’ve always thought that visual art should stimulate thoughts, opinions (positive or negative, either way it’s good), questions. Sadly there are many contemporary artists that use the shield of “conceptual” art to present all kinds of silly works. Conceptual yes, but there must be a concept at the base of it, otherwise it’s just presumptuous “stuff”.
[imgs by smog]
