Authenticity & The Camp
Now I am quietly waiting for the catastrophe of my personality to seem beautiful again, and interesting, and modern. — Frank O’Hara, Mayakovsky
This morning, on the bog, I scrolled through instagram to see hundreds of pictures from The Met Gala. They had come out in their droves, dressed in their finest linens, to the theme of ‘Camp’. From John Waters to Nicki Minaj — everything from post-modernism. Across that Red Carpet to Nowhere, celebrities adorned themselves in their finest emptiness. Camp, once upon a time, had been to combat the distrust of pop. Camp fuelled so many avenues of the artistic community, dipping its toe (or skinny dipping entire) in LGBT+ aesthetics and values, as a well as a host of beliefs & idiosyncracies against that industrial monster, modernism. Camp meant rebellion. But now the revolution is being televised, but only if its easy to digest. I cannot help but feel, in every gaudy dress, and genderswitched movie star, an insincerity. All of a sudden, it is ‘in’ to be supportive, to be kitsch. How can it be ‘in’ to be kitsch? This is paradoxical. I apologise if some point has been missed on my part, but authenticity is all there is left in the world: no good, no bad, just other. Not even an objective reality. Just a falsehood presented authentically, like Ezra Miller carrying his own face, the empty face held aloft before their true visage. Postmodernism gave birth to Camp, but it also gave birth to the soulless artist (we can thank Warhol for that too).
I have never, in my time being an artist — which, recently, I unearthed, whilst training to be a counsellor, I began to become directly after a particularly horrible break-up, so yes, I am a cliché, and yes, that makes every opinion I deliver unto your petty little eyes moot — bought into this new fad (although epoch is more accurate) for using artistic masturbation for branding, establishing a political agenda, follower count, all that jazz. Art for me was always more of a terrible affair, something chaotic. I preferred existing as an amorphous entity, paradoxes oozing from every gaping infected wound, with no one quite knowing who I was at any one moment; there is a Japanese proverb that apparently states a man is whatever room he is in. That, combined with a Baconerial disease of ideology, left me feeling quite empty when I found all my other fellow artists (apart from a couple) only made art that was easy to understand, about a simple historic moment of their life, in a way, they would announce proudly, was relatable. I am not sure if either movement could be regarded as Camp; I just know Camp now is merely another pedestal for ‘being seen’.
“I feel ever so strongly that an artist must be nourished by his passions and his despairs. These things alter an artist whether for the good or the better or the worse. It must alter him. The feelings of desperation and unhappiness are more useful to an artist than the feeling of contentment, because desperation and unhappiness stretch your whole sensibility.” — Francis Bacon
Recently in The New Yorker, I found a very short review of Ian McEwen’s latest novel (I have, sincerely, only read Enduring Love because school made me; I loved it) where Mr. McEwen is partly chastised for not wishing to belong to the category of a sci-fi writer, even if his book shares all the tell-tale signs of being one. Is it right to tell Ian how he wants to present himself? If Ian McEwen does not wish to be labelled a sci-fi writer, so be it? Do people not realise our methods of genre classification were part of our colonial rule? During The Islamic Golden Age, the libraries didn’t label books fiction or non-fiction; it didn’t matter how the story was told, only what the story told you. Of course, science fiction writers are angered that someone is perpetuating the idea that the work they make is not as worthwhile as, say, a fiction tome, but let’s be honest, we want to protect ourselves from awful critics. We want to be in charge of our destinies. In the same vein, I no longer ever wished to be regarded as a “spoken word performer” (dirty words) but merely a poet. And I definitely do not want to be defined as a “poet” (dirty words) but merely a writer. And I definitely don’t want to be defined as a “writer” (I do kind of like this one), but only as a “consummate drinker”. My definitions should come from within, not without. I understand the impossibility of this ask.
Guillaume Apollinaire got it. Arthur Rimbaud got it. Bob Dylan gets it. And then we hit the present eras, and although I wish to argue Jerry Saltz gets it (sorry, ladies, I know that’s a lot of white dudes in this list) I — well — let me make it plain that I don’t think, currently, anyone gets it. Post-modernism ate out the apple core of the world of art, and left us with Saatchi & Saatchi, Off-White™, Kanye (fuckin’) West (I loved you, still do, but now — why!), and silly twats like me that tried reading Infinite Jest on the train and then decided, it’s a bit too hard, but still tell people how good it was; I’ve not even read Siddhartha.
We live in an age where the artistic merit of something, although still present in many works around the globe, must also simultaneously be as valuable as its relatability. And even if the works are not relatable, and are indeed farfetched & strange, it merely gets bundled up, swaddled up, and sold on cheap Ikea shelves to the blinded middle-class, saying how sweet it would be to buy their gay daughter that cushion with a unicorn on it; it’s a bit odd isn’t it darling, yes, isn’t it, it’s just a bit niche and we love it for it. Meanwhile, on the Red Carpet to Nowhere, a whole other idea is swaddled up and ready to hit the shelves: that people care… Amongst those throngs are sincere faces — such as Ezra, for in carrying such a face they proved their sincerity (it was actually fuckin’ Camp) — but I can’t help but see the smiles for the camera, the desperate need for attention. Attention < Authenticity.
The artists try, I can’t deny that. I talk & chat & mingle & (god save me) network with them every day. And some, I repeat, I cannot deny, are really onto something. It’s sincere. Better than that, it’s honest. Better still, it’s authentic. I can feel through the pages or the canvas or the music, a real vibration, something from core to core. This is rare. For the most part, people want a like, a share, a click. For the most part, the artist just wants to sell their work. And then, the bloom. And then, it’s all Camp again, because it’s not.
How many times I have seen a piece against capitalism, that costs £5. How many times I have seen an artist waddle off to sell their wears, and if questioned where they are selling such work, they shrug off the ethics & say it is but a small price to pay to be seen, bought, supported. How many times I have seen the artist forget why they had made the work in the first place, or rather, realised in my self that they had, sincerely, only made such work so they could show it off later — consumed — relatable. On some level it could be argued that this is still authentic. If you make a piece of work that you intend to be easy to read, easy to devour, easy to eat, then you have made that piece authentically. I’d say you can only get close to honesty, authenticity — the zen bloom of the self — from fighting something far deeper. Francis Bacon fought that demon. He didn’t lose, neither did he win. Garry Shandling fought that demon. Patti Smith fought that demon, and fuckin’ won. Why won’t the artists today fight that demon? Why will they only hope that, one day, someone will see them? Even worse, to be seen demonless.
Once upon a time, Dante Gabriel Rossetti saw the works of Blake and lost his mind. Now, we watch Button Poetry, and smile when they say something political. Amongst the crowds we see Ezra & their face, and it becomes just another response to The Red Carpet to Nowhere, even if it actually does something. When I started writing this article a few days ago (so I’m not still sat on the bog, just so you know), I had written quite a diabolic attack against everyone on that carpet. I saw it only as a parade of people deciding to support LGBT+ because that is now the most marketable option; being bigoted is not good branding, nowadays. But I forgot that people on that carpet support that every day, without such vacuity. I forgot that if you hold an exhibition of artists, and 200 of those artists are terrible, and one of them is good, that one artist will look terrible too.
What does it mean to be authentic? Can a person be authentic? Can an artist be authentic? The last one, truly, troubles. There is a terror, I find, when you see the top down view of it all. When you step out so far and try and see how everything plays & dances with everything else. And then you get sucked back in, because some artists, celebrities, rappers, whatever, walk down a carpet under some semblance of an idea, and you chastise, and you scorn. And then you write & write to try and make sense of it all, why all these people can’t see the idiocy of their actions. How they believe one thing, but do another.
Amongst it all though, an artist does something sincere. A face on a stick. A first recorded EP. And maybe the cup can be emptied after all. Maybe — just maybe — I can be authentic again.
I repeat:
Now I am quietly waiting for the catastrophe of my personality to seem beautiful again, and interesting, and modern. — Frank O’Hara, Mayakovsky
