Anti-elite art vernacular (or, the most specific topic I've ever written 1000 words on)
One of the really particular quirks of education in Australia is that, around the age of 14-16, a lot of schools assign their classes Of Mice and Men, the John Steinbeck novel.
I should be clear: I really like this novel and Steinbeck in general. He's the sort of artist I really admire: he uses all his skill and life experience to speak up for people excluded from his art form and, in his way, try and do justice. When he's not doing that he was a whimsical engagement with place, people and travel, a sort of really lovely difference between a thunderous 'truth to power' and a calm 'man trees/the ocean are pretty great'.
However, in a lot of ways, that Australian teens are assigned this book is an odd choice: a depression era story about someone with a disability essentially being bullied until his best friend mercy kills him is an unusual thing for modern day young Australians to be assigned. Sure, there's some genuine empathy building and some great charactertisation on Steinbeck's part but almost all books have some education pros so it gets to be a bit of a level playing field.
One of the hardest things about teaching this text is getting students to understand the vernacular. In fact many teachers, almost like clockwork, will start off, before the book's even open, introducing the idea of vernacular.
'Well, it's like slang but also not quite'
'It's a way of talking that's unique to a region or time, but still within the language or dialect'
'I guess vernacular is what you notice as unusual in the way these characters talk'
Across the country, thousands of students leave classes with a sloppy idea of what vernacular is and a memorised response that it was a deliberate choice of Steinbeck's to faithfully represent the down-trodden working class, or some shit like that. And like pretty much everyone my age, I'd not heard the word before Year 10 English and, since then, it continues to pop up in the weirdest places. While vernacular might often be used to describe poor people and niche communities, I think it can equally describe the quirks of the elite, majority or the in groups. After all, the language used in these spaces can be equally bizarre, can it not?
And so, I want to turn away from mildly teasing my own education and peers (I did, after all, go on to teach Of Mice and Men to a few groups of Year 10 students) to less gently tease another weird form of vernacular: art speak. If you've ever spent any time around artists - and if you're reading this I bet you have - then you're probably really familiar with the incessant, jargonistic, wildly inaccurate, meaning-light word salad that just erupts as soon as more than one artist is in the same room.
You may have read or heard something like: 'The intentionality of someone's presuppositions are examined in the ways that they delve into their assumptionality and position-ness of the re-enactment of hetro-dominant stereotypes.' I did hear someone try and pretend 'assumptionality' was a word recently, gosh.
Art vernacular is a performance, but for an audience of none. It's a very weird, isolating and unfortunate way to talk about something visceral and real. Does ABBA need a thousand words to get you to dance? Does a description of Lord of the Rings as a 'repurposed and reimagined proto-narrative extracted from its foundational media and installed as an immersive film and sound project' make you like it more? I'm guessing not.
In my world, I also hear this bleed over into weird sentences about Indigenous Australians, things like 'living and working in so-called Melbourne, the artist recognises the colonial project undertaken and the ongoing non-cessation of removals'. Could you cram any more of a non-statement together? How the fuck does this help?
And that's the frustrating thing: what's being discussed is important. Art matters, political issues matter, speaking up matters. But why use a vernacular no one understands? Why use something that, as far as I can tell, is a crutch used out of insecurity (simple ideas can sometimes not sound that impressive, or someone feels they need to make themselves sound more academic)?
Here's a spicy thought: art speak has more in common with corporate talk than anything else. You hear/read a confusing vernacular a ton when you engage with things like insurance policies, banks and airlines. There's a pernicious circular quality to the language chosen: it's a strategy used to keep the customer away from options, power and choice, and protect the company at all costs. "Sir, the plane, once docked, is no longer the property of this airline and has, once the door opened, become managed by the hanger company. Their help desk is available on extensive 4 between 8am-12pm Monday to Friday. However, their policy on lost goods can differ from ours and we can neither confirm nor deny key aspects of their customer service processes.'
The implication, in my view, is that plain language shares knowledge and balances power - and many, many companies avoid this at all costs. Artists: do we want the way we talk about art to have more in common with Qantas' customer 'support' line or the people trying to get help?
It might be a bit contrite to argue that an overly academic form of talking is a deliberate attempt to distance people from something, but I wonder if the intention matters if the effect is the same. I wonder: when people (any people) are with their friends, talking about stuff that matters - what is their vernacular? I'd bet the family farm that the language is direct, clear, specific and I side with Einstein: if you can't explain it to your Grandma, you don't really know it.
Where's your vernacular coming from? How does that sit with you?
When it comes to images themselves, vernacular images are those made by non-artists. The amazing thing is that when exhibitions and books of vernacular images are shown those exhibitions are incredibly popular. Vivian Maier, Warren Kirk, etc - lots of people love this work - and why not? It meets them where they are, in the best and most vital way. While it can be fun to make high-minded, complex art - at the end of the day if you're trying to engage with something important, maybe it's more effective to do so in a way others get, and enjoy getting. If you're not, who are you more like - the insurance company or the confused customer?
Who do you choose to exclude? The elites, or everyone else?