British art critic Matthew Collings is currently in Australia, to lecture (not surprisingly) on art, or, as he explains: ‘What my idea of contemporary art is about’. Although he does humbly admit to not knowing much about contemporary Australian art.
When pushed to define the exact ‘art’ he is going to talk about, Collings acknowledges that his interest in contemporary art is based on what he knows. ‘I tend to know my own patch,’ he comments, ‘I have been doing this for 25 years now, and in that time I have formed my ideas about art, based on a lot of internationalism… I have been very interested in American art and German art, as well as English art, and to some extent other European countries. But I have never really known about Australian art because it is too far away.’
In Britain, Collings is best known for presenting the Channel 4 show, This is Modern Art, which has also screened on Australia’s national broadcaster. Not only is he acclaimed in the UK as being ‘one of the best writers on art and culture ever’, he is also the television presenter of the Turner Prize, and has had a number of his books published through David Bowie’s publishing house. The scene he is most familiar with and famous for commenting on is British or London art, and in particular what is referred to as ‘the phenomenon of the Young British Artist (YBA)’ in the 1990s.
Part of Collings’ appeal as an art critic is the language he uses, or, more precisely, doesn’t use. It is far from the loaded hyperbolic resonance that typically personifies the analysis of art. Is the hyperbole needed? ‘Well, yes’ he says. ‘It is very appropriate, because art at the moment is designed to have that “talk” around it, although I personally find that is a bore.’
‘Unrealistic and strained, and unlike the experience,’ is how Collings sums up the “talk”. He qualifies his judgement, though, by explaining that it is not that art criticism should be necessarily common sense, but rather that the strain and unreality of that kind of talk tends to reflect something strained and unreal about that type of art.
Yet Collings also believes that art is something that is understood by those who make the effort to understand. ‘If you are willing to take things seriously, and you can find what is serious in there, then you are more able to separate what is not so good from what is good.’
This is a better position to take, he adds, than standing always at a distance and sneering. ‘I am not a sneerer,’ he claims, ‘But I am certainly capable of sneering. I do know a lot about what I am interested in, and I don’t think it is all good. However, some have either an attitude of contempt towards art, or an attitude of Girl Guides’ infatuation with it, and say it is all only one thing – rubbish or marvellous. I don’t have either of those positions.’
The role of the critic in general, according to Collings, is to fulfil a number of social obligations, and the art critic has a particular role. For Collings, this role, although narrow, is key, because, he says, it can move people. That role involves the capacity to identify with a work of art, and then use language to describe it. ‘I think that is very rare, but when that happens, it is rather marvellous. And I would like to think that every now again I do that.’
When asked to define his own role as a critic, Collings firstly admits that he is not sure how he would sum up what he actually does most of the time. In terms of art, however, he believes that there are, at the moment, quite complicated concepts attached. These concepts are left up to critics to decipher, placing the critic in what Collings calls the role of High Priest, where they speak some magic words and, hey presto, all is revealed.
But he finds this role tedious, and does not consider himself a High Priest of art: ‘I never say anything High Priestly. I never use that sort of jargon,’ he affirms.
Indeed, Collings’ writings and criticism are praised for their accessibility. Some have applauded him for his lack of pretension, and for even allowing a sense of vulnerability to enter his work. When quizzed about this, Collings explains that a lot of his writing follows various forms of confessional discourse, and these anecdotes tend to be at his own expense. ‘The stories place me in a situation in art where I make some sort of mistake and embarrass myself,’ he says. ‘I don’t know quite why I do that. It’s like how a comedian has certain things they can do well, and I seem to be able to do this well. In any case, I do it, and sometimes I come up with an insight about art as well.’
Are these confessions accidental revelations? Collings believes they are, because writing generally depends on device to make it work. Yet the device needs to be woven gently through the content, because, as he points out: ‘If it is all too sewn up then there is no air, and it [the content] is nothing.’
Even for someone like Collings, who knows a great deal about the contemporary art scene, surprises do come along. When this happens, his dilemma lies in how to express this ‘something new’, with patently familiar language. Although his solution is not overly methodical – perhaps purposefully so – it has produced an impressive series of successful texts. What he does, he explains, is resort to his narrative, confessional, diary-style prose. This creates a stream-of-conscious process which he follows until something makes sense. It doesn’t always work, he admits, but the impulsiveness of the style seems to be significant, particularly since he refers to his writing as: ‘A chancy thing.’
Searching for the language to articulate, without resorting to clichés or stock responses, is a priority for Collings. ‘You are dealing all the time with works of art that are talked about in certain ways, which I have become very familiar with,’ he says. ‘And if I like something, I don’t want to say the same things that are always said.’
The concept of truth and of speaking or writing the truth is something Collings has also thought about. He begins by declaring that there is no such thing as ‘truth’, but then quickly qualifies his statement by adding: ‘There is more truth than a lot of people would assume – but there is no real truth.’
A response to artwork, according to Collings, is not initially verbal. It is what he calls ‘preverbal or non-verbal’. If you particularly like a painting, it could be described not inappropriately, he says, as ‘ineffable’, but ‘ineffable’ can’t be the only accessible term to describe a painting, so it becomes necessary to articulate.
Collings has been noted as a critic who steers away from ‘Artspeak’ to use a more lucid language. ‘What language should be used to describe a painting?’ he asks. ‘It’s not that I am the one who speaks the truth. If talking common sense instead of jargon is “truth”, then the kind of truth people think I am saying is quite banal. In the end, I have to be my own critic, so I can check and see whether there is anything like an observation or some objective truth in what I am saying. So truth does come into it, but I don’t really believe the hype about me being such a truthful guy.’
Neither is art about blazing truths or criticism, he concedes. However, Collings does believe critics must believe what they write, despite all the paraphernalia that may crowd the content. ‘You want to get across something that you feel you know, and all the time you are looking for angles and devices to do that. What you don’t want is too much device – you want to balance the raw material with device, and in there, there will be some kind of truth.’
Collings agrees that, in the end, he is actually creating his own language and his own place in the art world, and this is something he enjoys. ‘My role is as a describer and commentator within the art community. And I deliberately work in that community as both an insider as an outsider.’ Why is he an outsider? He says this is partly to do with his own personal pathology and partly with the game he plays. This ‘game’ is that he prefers not to be an absolute member of the art community, because he doesn’t entirely believe in its sincerity.
For Collings, it is the community of people and politics that he is opposed to, rather than the art.
‘People and ideas change, institutions come and go… I try to cultivate, in a conscious way, a kind of insider/outsider approach to the subject. The subject for me – that I am writing about – is both art and that community, because I don’t see how to separate one from the other. It isn’t impossible to say anything meaningful about art unless you also talk about the context in which the art is made.’
