Which is the serious art?
Painter William Wray is opening his latest showing this Saturday night at a gallery in Monrovia, here in Southern California. Here’s information on the gallery and its friendly and knowledgeable owner, Laura Segil, and here’s info on the artist, and above is one of his paintings.
Some of us are more familiar with some other William Wray art. It’s the art he signs as Bill Wray, and includes animation and print work on Hellboy, Batman, and Ren & Stimpy. Here’s that Wray’s site, and here’s a representative illustration. (Although when he does, say, Bugs Bunny, it’s with a gentler touch.)
So I ask you: Which is the serious art?
The answer is: both.
I like that William Wray is both a fine-art painter and a commercial/comic illustrator. I like that my friend Gerald Locklin writes accessible poems that are also packed with meaning. I write marketing copy as well as plays, and I enjoy them both (although in different ways). Shakespeare wrote for the masses, but somehow wound up being artistic. Samuel Beckett, the doyen of litterateurs, loved detective thrillers (and I’m sure if he could have written one, would have).
We have this false notion that there is “low” art and “high” art. I don’t think so. I think there’s “good” art and “bad” art, and there’s art that’s more accessible (because the references are more easily understood by more people) and there’s art that’s less accessible. Moreover, I often wonder if the advocates of “high art” aren’t a little too interested in keeping more people from scaling their towers and gaining access.
Recently a colleague from USC came to see one of my plays and told me afterward how glad he was to see so many people laughing. (Intentionally: It’s a comedy.) For decades, he’s suffered the slings and arrows of a certain slice of the academy, where lighter material is frowned upon, and to be funny isn’t to be any good. (And we wonder what happened to the audience for poetry.)
So I celebrate William Wray and his alter ego Bill Wray. And early this Saturday evening I may drive out to Monrovia to meet them.
July 12th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Here’s a quote from Edward J. Sozanski, from his review of an exhibit by the artist Red Grooms. This originally appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
“For me the humor and nostalgia in Grooms’ art images isn’t the ultimate point. Rather, it’s the realization that art is life, not religion, and we shouldn’t always take it so seriously.”
I’ve been unhappily aware, for a long time, of the divide many people believe exists between ‘high’ and ‘low’ art. That idea was very common when I was growing up and I don’t think I’ll ever completely shake off its negative influence. Feh!