What is odd, and what is sad, about the man who defaced a Mark Rothko painting at Tate Modern is that he seems rather pleased with himself, going on the slim reports in the newspapers, and a short interview he's given.
26 year-old Vladimir Umanets says he is "not a vandal" and has added to the work's value.
Well, he clearly is a vandal. And a flagrant self-publicist too.
He and a friend have come up with an artistic manifesto called 'Yellowism,' which is described as "neither art, nor anti-art." It doesn't sound terribly substantial.
Umanets claims he was inspired by Marcel Duchamp. How sad, though, to be inspired by Duchamp, the man who put a urinal in an art gallery. The man who took something made by someone else, and used it to be 'clever.' No one likes a clever dick, except the artistic establishment, which has spent decades worshiping at Duchamp's 'ready-made' feet of clay.
What Duchamp said, of course, is that anything, effectively, can be art if it's put between the walls of a gallery. But to be that sort of artist, you need the ability to 'select' something worthy of being hung on a wall. Doesn't that turn the artist into a critic, though, or a curator? If the artist is merely choosing something of alleged value, then where is his art? What has he made? What has he created? Nothing.
A lot of conceptual art seems to be focused on justification. Great screeds of hyper-bullshit have been written about Tracey Emin's unmade bed, trying to persuade people of its value, helping them to 'understand' it. In the end, thought, it's just a messy divan, the kind of thing that could be found in thousands of homes, most days. But can Tracey draw? Does she have real skill? Critics say the jury is very much out on that.
Likewise, lots of pretentious rubbish has been written in praise of Martin Creed's lightbulb turning on and off, which helped him to win the Turner Prize in 2001. It's a 'work' which displays no skill, no craftsmanship, no emotion, and certainly no beauty. Such 'conceptual' art is nihilistic in the sense that there is no proper effort involved. Art can be disturbing, but it can also be uplifting, life-affirming. Creed's lightbulb is infantilizing. Why? Because it says you can be an artist without really doing anything. Anything worthwhile in life takes effort. Except, it seems, conceptual art. But then again, is it worthwhile? Arguably quite the opposite.
Mark Rothko was an artistic giant, creating work of beauty, subtlety and depth. Vladimir Umanets, in defacing one of Rothko's paintings, has shown himself to be a very silly, and perhaps rather deluded young man. And yet decades of nonsense conceptualism and the people who promoted it must share the blame, because without their misguided inspiration, he wouldn't have done it in the first place.