Who's Afraid of Picasso's Tie, or Do You See the Catch in Hypothetical Art?

On November 9th, 2007, in a small Slovenian town called Slovenj Gradec, a symposium on art took place which was entitled The Challenges and Catches of Fine Art's Future.

At that symposium I presented the concept of a "mousetrap" called hypothetical art.

So, what is hypothetical art or the art in the hypothesis? And why should artists be afraid of it?

And the Winner is … Fountain!

I will try to show the concept of hypothetical art beginning with the well known opinion poll, which was ordered by Gordon's Gin and was carried out between 500 experts of Great Britain's "artworld" [1]. The question stated by the poll was asking about the most influential artwork of the 20th century [2]. The experts could decide between twenty artworks and they had to choose three.

The results of this poll were announced on December 1st, 2004, as following: Duchamp's Fountain was the notorious winner and got 64% of votes, so there was no need for another election round. The second place was taken by Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, followed by Warhol's Marilyn Diptych. The fourth place was taken by another Picasso (Guernica) and only in fifth place was Matisse's L'Atelier Rouge.

When I was reviewing these results I was certain that the majority of votes given to the urinal were by art theorists. But I was surprised to learn that artists were those who were most fond of it. In fact, none of the artists actually voted for Matisse!

Anyway, the results of this poll are now well known for they were extensively debated, also by non-experts on e-forums. These non-expert opinions are especially interesting for they are straightforward pro et contras, not trying to melt into diplomacy.

Let me give just two extreme examples from the e-forum on BBC News:

"Pitiful. It tells you everything you need to know about 'modern' art, where the conception is more important than the end product. Tracy Emin would be back where she belonged, working at a Fish and Chip shop in Margate, if modern art hadn't veered off the rails of creativeness and down the embankment of creative process."

"I am not surprised to hear that a urinal is the most influential modern art of all time. It has inspired genius works like an unmade bed, bag of rubbish and other pieces of art. Duchamp was a genius and I am glad to see he is recognised for it" [3].

It is interesting to see a clash of opinions about Tracy Emin's Unmade Bed, as one sees it as an example of dilettantism and the other as a "genious work" —while both commenting on the very same qualities! Even though it seems easy to get emotionally involved in either of the two sides, it is actually difficult for the expert to reasonably take one or the other. There is no firm rational basis to ground either of two options (or in other words: you can equally ground both of them). Subsequently, it is obvious that the results of this poll were not determined by universal objective laws, but by the "political" attitude of the experts participating in the poll. These so-called "experts" were not some independent public but the high-flying "art-world" [4]. And it is well known that this acknowledged artworld is actually post-duchampian. Therefore, it is a kind of tautology to ask a postduchampian what is the most influential artwork. The results would be —so I think —much different if the participants were not the crème de la crème of the artworld, but were rather marginal art theorists and artists who feel more influenced by some other artwork than Fountain. It is really a matter of art politics to win the election on such a poll and not a matter of a "higher truth."

However —and here is the point I want to make —a much more important problem than deciding whether to vote for Duchamp or for Matisse is hidden behind such superficial...