The most revealing, accurate and scathing criticism of modern art is something I read in Robert Heinlein’s “Stranger in a strange land”, where the author, through one of his characters, says that the main reason why modern art is worthless is that it doesn’t communicate, that it amounts to pointless exercise in navel gazing by pompous pricks. You see, art is supposed to be a form of communication, where the artist communicates his ideas, emotions and other aspects of his psyche with the audience, and this is possible only if they share a common language, in this case of visual symbols, meanings and hints. Where modern art got it wrong is when every artist started making up his own visual language, and the critics applauded because they wanted to have their ego stimulated by being part of the “in” crowd, the ones who “get it”, while it is often the case that they don’t get it because there’s nothing to get, because the emperor is indeed naked. The modern art tries to imply that it is an encoded message that requires possession of the “decryption key” in order to figure it out, but if the “secret key” isn’t shared with the audience, if the audience is required to guess it, in reality there will be no difference between an encrypted message and random noise.

So, if a modern artist has indeed created a piece of art with a secret encoded message, all the while providing no clues for its decoding, he is a pompous ass.

Alternatively, it’s all bullshit without any value whatsoever.

Let me illustrate the difference between bullshit in modern art, and modern art with a message:

This is random bullshit without any value whatsoever, created by Jackson Pollock

This is a message about the state of modern society by Banksy

See the difference? Banksy uses commonly intelligible symbols, like words, sentences and figures. If you’re reasonably intelligent, you’ll have no problem understanding what he wanted to say. With Pollock, you can’t understand what he wanted to say, because it’s just random blotches of paint on a canvas. What it does show is that the author got lost in his own bullshit and no longer knows what he’s trying to do. Basically, he’s just getting drunk and going crazy.

Banksy’s art has a strong message, and this message is conveyed in the manner intelligible to his intended audience. The only thing that’s missing in his art, is pompous pretense and snobbery.

What I actually find funny is that I can often find a more profound message in works that are massively popular and are not commonly seen as art, than in works that are presented as art. The stuff that’s presented as art is usually just stupid and crazy; the message, if it even exists, is trivial and shows only the shallow and superficial nature of the author.

Stuff that’s widely popular in the general population, on the other hand, is usually popular because it has a strong message, something that strongly resonates with the audience. I’ll use the “Twilight” series of books as an example, because it’s an excellent example of a work that’s commonly frowned upon by the artistic “elite”.

On the surface, it’s a “young adult” book series about teenagers and vampires and werewolves and it’s as shallow as a piece of paper. But on the surface, “David” is just a piece of marble. Let’s see what’s packaged inside the superficial content. First you have the concept of self-control as the way of overcoming one’s lower animal nature and attaining higher forms of existence that are not possible if you immediately go for the quick gratification of senses. If you’re a vampire and you simply follow your thirst for human blood, you end up killing your future wife and your life is permanently altered for the worse. Furthermore, it’s a test of resolve: Edward, the male protagonist, wasn’t given a common level of temptation to overcome, he was given an almost impossible level of temptation, and at the most sensitive, vital spot, in some form of incredible cruelty of destiny, because that is what is needed to crush his arrogance. He knows that if he eats her, he will betray his father Carlisle, who is some sort of a vampire saint and his perfect role model of restraint, love, wisdom and intelligence. Later, as he actually falls in love with the girl, his instinctive bloodlust still threatens like Damocles’ sword, and now it’s no longer about possibly killing an innocent stranger, it’s about possibly killing the love of your life, and the temptation is still so bad it’s always a close call, and he needs to acquire a supernatural degree of self-control in order to be harmless enough not to destroy his life by accident. And this is not all. Unbeknownst to him and his family, the Volturi, a super-powerful ruling family of vampires, are set on their path at some unknown point in the future, where they will attempt to acquire some of them for their guard, while destroying the others. Bella, the super-tasty human girl, is the only possible defense, with her supernatural mental shielding ability, but nobody knows that. As far as everybody knows, she’s merely a human with incredibly bad luck, which forces Edward and his family to constantly get into trouble by trying to protect her, and if they do everything right, not only saving her life, but being the kind of people she would love enough to exceed all normal limits of her shield and instinctively expand it to protect them against supernatural attacks, only then do they have a chance of surviving. It’s very obviously hinted that destiny played a hand in things, and it’s not a destiny that just happens, it’s a destiny that demands that you make a choice, a choice that would prove you worthy in the eyes of God… or not. If you are worthy, not only will you get the instrument of your salvation, you will also gain fulfillment in your life, and by the virtue of your choice you actually become worthy. If not… the mechanism of your destruction had already been set in motion and it will reach you with the inevitability of sunrise, and you will have killed your only defense. And the thing is, you don’t know it. You don’t know how important the test is, you don’t know that absolutely everything is at stake. And there is more, of course: the implied hints that Carlisle is looking for a sign from God that he’s doing the right thing, because as much as he tries to be a good person, he can’t ever be sure of how his actions will be received by God – is he a doomed, soulless monster whose attempts are in vain, or is he merely a different child of God, who will be judged on his choices and efforts like everyone else. He doesn’t know whether his choice to make other vampires is a grave error or an act of kindness; however, now the fate has placed a person in his path, who can and will save him and his family if, and only if all these conditions are fulfilled: if they protect her with their lives, if she gets to love them beyond reason, and if she is turned into a vampire. If any of those conditions aren’t met, they all die. So, turning her into a vampire is God’s test to see if they are worthy, and, implicitly, it’s approval of their worthiness for salvation, proof that they are important enough and precious enough to be saved by such an elaborate setup, but only if they choose to be the kind of people that deserve salvation. So, Bella isn’t just a teenage girl his son falls in love with. She’s not just a remarkable person with special gifts. She’s a sacrament from God, a visible sign of invisible grace of God, but she’s also a dire warning about the supreme importance of restraint, free will and choice.

And it’s all there, if you put your snobbery aside and actually read into it. I didn’t invent this interpretation, it’s implicit in the works, and some parts are actually explicitly stated. It’s not encoded, it’s there for everybody to see, but people need to put their arrogance aside and have faith that there’s something worth seeing, and this, apparently, is the test on which almost everybody fails, because they are too arrogant about their sophistication in art and literature to look for deeper meanings in teenage romance books about schoolgirls and vampires. But a hint about that is also given in the books: if you see Bella only as a tasty snack, it all ends there, and for you she’s nothing more. However, it’s a fail.

And this might as well be the reason why “Twilight” is so massively popular – it’s a subliminal message that God has something wonderful in store for us, if we are restrained, subtle, patient and prove to be worthy.