The Culture Of Pretence

A friend of yours has invited you on a tour to an Art gallery in London tomorrow, and since you have nothing better to do, you agree to her proposal. You heroically wake up at 7:30, take the 8:05 train from Cambridge to London's King Cross, and after a harrowing fifteen minutes in the Underground, you are finally there. You take the polished elevator and reach the third floor where you follow the instructions and enter the gallery soon after.

What strikes you immediately is the expansive barrenness of the brightly-lit room : there are no pictures or paintings on the walls painted green and orange, and there are no sculptures or statues at the sides either. And then your friend points out to you three small red stones laid down haphazardly at the far end of the room. Now what you must not do is to exclaim, 'Is that supposed to be Art?', for not only will this uncivilized holler massively infuriate your discerning friend but it will also place her in a highly embarassing situation with all those civilized people around her.

Instead, try to grasp the fact that we are all living inside the cocoon of a Culture of Pretence, and when you are able to do so, you will also be able to consume with perfect equanimity what is being peddled in front of you as Art. Firstly, the Artist pretends that she is on a serious mission to propagate a subversive message through her Art; secondly, the Art-critics pretend to take this revelation of hers seriously; thirdly, the Art-gallery manager who buys and promotes her Art pretends to listen to the opinions of these Art-critics seriously. It does not stop there, for the Japanese businessman who buys her Art pretends to have become an Art-connoisseur overnight, and pretends, in addition, to have developed an acutely discriminating sense of what Art is; moreover, the Art-reporters for the national newspapers pretend to have comprehended the refined choice of these Art-connoisseurs.

However. However, let us say that you do not quite accept my freely given advice with your best interests at my heart, and actually commit the most reprehensible crime of declaring that what you see strewn in front of you is clearly not Art. In that case, you must be prepared to face an unceasing avalanche of exasperated interjections from indignant Art-lovers who will immediately accuse you of being totalitarian, repressive, hegemonic, and normalizing. Once again, however, be not ruffled in the least by their expletives : they are simply trying their best to pretend to be arguing seriously, and you should return them the compliment by pretending to listen to them seriously.