Fuck the Mona Lisa or, Yes, Art is for You Too

In case you hadn't heard, I've recently made the big move to London to undertake a Masters degree (which has been a great excuse to move to London in the first place, which is far more fun than studying at home would have been). Since moving, I've met a lot of people: some friends, some acquaintances, some enemies. Consistent amongst those friends, despite their disparate study interests and hobbies, is that they all want me to take them to art galleries and "teach them how to art". They do not, actually, want me to teach them how to engage with art, but what the factually accurate history of art is in relation to a particular canon of artistic objects. 

Anyone who has had the opportunity to study the arts in a critical context, however, knows that the historical significance of art is only part of the education, and that a far more significant component of enjoying art is a subjective approach based on personal experience, likes, and dislikes. Learning to say if you love or hate art has its basis in empowering your own personal interest over the established canon of Good Art™.

The best elucidation of this for myself was my first and only experience of the Mona Lisa. My first real holiday as an independent adult, my European adventure started in Paris and inevitably included a trip to the Louvre. Wandering around, completely disoriented by the sprawling museum, I couldn't understand why there was such a hubbub forming en route to a particular room until I was already in it. Within that room were tens of tourists from around the world, each with a phone, a camera, a selfie stick, a crowd more like paparazzi swarming a reality tv star than a group of gallery goers, and one (1) Mona Lisa. 

Gallery goers clamour to photograph the Mona Lisa (from bossfight.co)

I'd like to categorically state that I now hate the Mona Lisa in a way which I unlike not a single other piece of art: the Mona Lisa grinds my gears. I didn't know that until I saw it with my own two eyes, encased in bulletproof glass, guarded and chaperoned, and surrounded by the paparazzi crowd I had been embroiled in. The painting, dimensions 30x21 inches, hangs on a specially built partitioning wall with a series of barriers to hem in the crowd and seems laughably small in the face of all this excitement. I don't think people who haven't seen it in the flesh realise just how small a portrait it really is: the ratio of empty wall to portrait is a lot like hanging a sticky note on my bedroom wall and then behaving as though its presence were as monumental as a billboard. And in the grand scheme of exciting and interesting art out there (in Paris and the world), the Mona Lisa ranks pretty low. It's just one example of portraiture from this period. There are hundreds more where that came from.

The Louvre doesn't want to tell its attendees that the Mona Lisa isn't famous because it's such a perfect example of art, or portraiture, or DaVinci's work. Generally well regarded when it was first exhibited at the gallery, it didn't become the famous object it is now until it was stolen in 1911. The spectacle of the theft and its return to the gallery kept excitement surrounding the piece for some time, which was then replaced with a general reverence for the work for decades to come. Vox suggests that the particular aesthetic respect many hold for the Mona Lisa stems from media descriptions of the missing painting, many of these being quoted from one particular Mona Lisa fanatic. Blake Gopnik also highlights how the Mona Lisa was never that special a painting prior to the theft:

'Works of art become popular icons from exposure, not from intrinsic worth: Even the "Mona Lisa" was just another Leonardo until early last century, when the scandal of the painting's theft from the Louvre and subsequent return kept a spotlight on it over several years.' - Blake Gopnik, 'A Record Picasso and the Hype Price of Status Objects' 

What I'm getting at is that I had never felt empowered in my own opinion about art until I saw the Mona Lisa, and found the hype surrounding it firstly laughable, and secondly frustrating. The excitement surrounding the Mona Lisa has more to do with media frenzy and the spectacle of a good art theft story than anything else, and yet we treat it as though it were a divine creation sent from the Gods to teach us what the perfect artwork was. Learning, when I encountered it in the flesh, to hate that damn painting was the beginning of my real engagement with art: I now know I can love art, I can hate art, I can feel different to art both with and against an established canon of Good Art™, for considered opinions or arbitrary reasons. My experience of art is up to me. 

The failure of galleries to encourage artistic engagement not based on one established canon of what constitutes good art, and our own personal failures to shake these tired old histories off in favour of an artistic experience we can actually relate to and enjoy, has caused a series of developmental problems for galleries across the board: including, but not limited to, the embrace of the digital within galleries and the digitisation of collections online. Because galleries worry about the upholding of the canon in their galleries, or of a particular art historical understanding, the concerns surrounding the employment of the digital is usually predicated on concerns of misuse or misinterpretation by the public. But if these artworks are so grand, so perfect in every way, so communicative of human experience - then why such concern? Michael Peter Edson highlights that

'Museums were so used to having total control over rights and reproductions that they were very concerned about the consequences of letting people use ‘their’ collections without their permission. There was a concern that the public might misinterpret the materials or use them in unapproved ways' (Michael Peter Edson)

The anxiety surrounding the liberation of art to the viewer says a lot about the stakes the galleries have in perpetuating certain narratives of art history: by continuously insisting on one particular narrative, their collections become only more valuable. By insisting on the Mona Lisa as one of the best examples of artistic perfection there is, The Louvre makes more and more money from tourists insisting they must see it. Learning to hate the Mona Lisa (or love it, it's up to you) will set you free. The first thing I tell anyone I take to a gallery to "teach them to art" is that it is perfectly okay to hate a piece of art for completely arbitrary reasons. It is especially okay, in my book, to hate the Mona Lisa for completely arbitrary reasons and to talk about it only with complete vitriol. 

Simple, yet childishly effective:
Duchamp's L.H.O.O.Q (1919)

This is not to say that hatred of the artistic canon should end in one disliking and disengaging from all artistic viewing and practice. Hatred of the canon can be, and should be, just as productive as liking it. The Mona Lisa alone is reproduced and parodied at exponential rates, both for profit by the gallery and other businesses, and as a disruption to this self-serious understanding of the image. My favourite is Duchamp's L..H.O.O.Q, a postcard of the portrait with a moustache and a crass pun drawn on it. Simple, impish, effective - what's not to love? Caroline Shotton's Moo-na Lisa makes me chuckle even if I don't much like it, Banksy's interpretation makes me roll my eyes, Warhol's Thirty Are Better Than One has become a key critical work regarding technological reproduction.

Most of all, one of my favourite conversations to have is about hating things we're supposed to love or uphold or admire simply because people tell us too. I devoured this twitter thread for quite some time because it's so cathartic to admit to hating something, but also a valid form of critique - much of what these twitter users have to say contributes more to art criticism in 280 characters than some critics can do in a lifetime.

To summarise, please stop asking me to teach you what is and is not good art, according to a prescribed set of rules. Instead ask me what my irrational opinions are. And, instead of attending the Louvre for wee Mona, do yourself a favour and go somewhere else or look at something else instead.