Painting's not the longest con in Western culture. That place would be reserved, I guess, for Jesus or something. But painting was used to make images lie. Its cheating and hoodwinking and lies continued unabated for hundreds of years, using pinholes and lenses and smoke and mirrors, giving artists a reputation for genius which was unachievable by a mere mortal, and giving art the elevated, hyperreal reputation it enjoys to this day, long after painting itself was exposed as a fraud.

Once its lies were exposed, painting became reviled among elevated artists the world over, with a reputation among art media somewhere near the reputation of Hitler among politicians. Not nice, not cool. Definitely not funny. Any self-respecting artist will tell you (quite often) that there is no justifiable reason for painting, ever. And in the same breath they are tacitly saying that there can be no possible justification because they can't think of one. Which is a big assumption to make. The kind of assumption that has caught people out again and again in the history of art. Never say ever.

Artists who are way too clever to ever say never have been painting for a while already. They use painting where it fits their concept, like in Jake and Dinos Chapman's 2005 show with my most favourite title ever (!): Like A Dog Returns To Its Vomit. Painting and drawing are used to take the piss out of painting and drawing... think + think = doublethink.

This is what thinking 'painters' of our time are doing. They don't explain it in words of one syllable because, as with all conceptual art, you are supposed think about it until you get the joke. But if you just can't do it, if the word 'painting' is JUST NOT FUNNY and you put all painters in the same bad box, then do remember that Vodacom ads are concepts, installations can be found at Morkel's furniture store, and Kevin Costner is a performance artist.

Labels: painting