A reply to Donald Brook's 'Art is What it Always Was...'

by Ken Whisson

Some thoughts in relation to the idea put forward by Donald Brook in A Public of Individuals Vol.1 No.3 that art is essentially "what it always was" and is therefore not open to historical examination.

The word "meme" is new to me, and who knows perhaps new also to Donald Brook. The thesis built by its means, however, is not without interest, and his argumentation does lead slowly, but logically enough to his conclusion that "works of art are those things to which attention is paid in the hope that reflection upon them may deliver up to a disengaged contemplator, the prospect of some memetic innovation."

Is this conclusion, however, in any way adequate to an art world which has seen some fifty years - meaning to a bit beyond the first half of the last century - of heroic, splendid attempts to as near as possible eliminate the "memetic" half of this tandem, followed by thirty or forty years - the period to now - which could be characterised as the shipwreck of the above impulse?

My feeling, in other words, is that the current situation, or long moment of art history and its elucidation, as well as any possible path forward, requires a much less detached orientation than that of Donald Brook. And if one's thesis is to be that art is what it always was, a very rigorous and imaginative art historical analysis, alongside a rigorous and intelligent art practice will be required to demonstrate and promote the validity of this thesis.

To quote his concluding sentences with a change of name: This was Donald Brook's point, I imagine; though he did not spell it out explicitly. Or if after all this was not his point, then it should have been.


Ken Whisson is an artist. He is represented by Watters Gallery , where a small group of his paintings will be exhibited from late January until February 22.

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