I think if you really thought about what I'm saying you'd sort of figure it out for yourself. You cannot possibly believe that White on White posesses an equal amount of social context as the Roettigen Pieta or the Isenheim altarpiece.
Of course it does. It posseses the cultural context of the Russian avant-garde in the 1910's. A fusion of cubism and futurism with philosophical, psychological and mathematical concepts of the time. Entirely of its era and place, inspired by contemporary Russian figures such as Ouspensky and artistic ideas like Zaum, born of the brief flowering of Russian culture at the end of the tsars and before the communists cracked down. It has exactly as much social context as any other picture produced in the history of man. The fact that is has tried to elude its cultural context is as much a comment on the culture that produced it as anything else. Its visual vocabulary is set and defined by certain narrow philosophical ideas. To imagine that this picture, or others similiar to it, can magically escape such restraints is a conceit. Indeed, to argue that this picture has no cultural context, you would have to invoke the artists intent to have it escape such context and...well, lets not even go there.
About fine art:
I'm an art student, studying to be a commercial illustrator. I find it impossible not to divide the world of art up by its academic provinces: Fine art, graphics, illustration, textiles, etc. etc. Thus, when I say 'fine art' I mean the area of art covered by a fine art degree which is, in fact, pretty much art for arts sake, except that, of course, it is a medium for communication. A visual language. Your point about reflection and communication existing simultaneously is interesting, but I don't accept it quite, except that to say communication causes reflection. It's a reaction to outside stimuli as much as anything we do is (a mirror only reflects something when there is something to reflect, or something like that.) In that case, we can still say that art is a medium of communication. Most, if not all, art exists to make a statement about the world. Often, nowadays, that statement is merely about art, which is one reason I consider fine art practice in the modern sense to be somewhat self-serving and insular. Art has become something whose audience is primarily other artists and a cultural or intellectual elite who take an interest in the cerebral side of the whole affair. I (drunkenly btw) bought up the example of Michael Craig-Martins piece 'An Oak Tree', which (you probably already know this) is a glass of water accompanied by a piece of text in which the artist claims via a Q and A to have turned the glass of water in to an oak tree without changing its appearance. It's a rather clever piece. It made me chucke a bit and think about Kant. But to the man on the street it is, quite frankly, a pile of shit. It's more a philosophical thought experiment than art, the same with many other peices, Fountain being perhaps the most famous, though I love that for the sheer fucking audacity. Goodness, I'm waffling on. Anyway, my point was that whilst white on white may, in fact, be communicating something, it is not, despite the concept behind it, communicating it well and clearly. The reception of the message is dependent to a large extent on the recipients ability to understand it, or even understand that it is an attempt to communicate. If you were to see White on White outside the gallery, your first idea, I can assure you, would not be to consider it a profound piece of art. You need a certain mindset or level of knowledge to even understand that a black circle or a white square might be trying to communicate something. Give me a Hiroshige any day!
EDIT: Twatted up the quote tags.
Just because a piece was produced at a particular time and place does not mean it bears symbols or the representation of that time in place on itself.
White on White was made by a Russian in the middle of the 20th century, but so what? Show it to anyone on the street and ask them the nationality and time period of the work. Now, take another more representational piece and show it to them, and see if there aren't more clues as to when and where the piece was made. Additionally, it is plain that its effort to break free from cultural boundaries does not reflect on the Russians, since Suprematism was a movement fairly removed from other Russian works of the period.
The artist's intent is not what makes
White on White so removed. It is the image--what you see on the canvas. The goddamned paint. The color white and squares are not immediately identifiable with a specific culture!
The area of art covered by a fine art degree can be, by decision, music composition, theory, performance, performance art, fine art, graphic design and illustration, theatre, technical theatre, theatre theory, and any other wide diversity of subject that pertains to the arts. Even if you narrow your definition down to an Art History degree, which is immediately concerned with aesthetic trends and movements within historical art pieces, it takes about five minutes to demonstrate that the art it is concerned with goes far and beyond the bounds of art for art's sake, and even those few pieces--pieces made solely as "art"--are not inherently incomprehensible to the "common man." Plenty of fine art is made specifically for the common man.
It is true that much of the art in the present era comments about itself. This is because we live during Postmodernism, and that is the aim of the movement. Fortunately for you, since you detest it so, it doubtlessly coming to a close.
It's interesting you bring up Duchamp's
Fountain. Largely the beginning of the Dadaist movement, it is "anti-art." Duchamp entered it into the Academy in order to
break down the pretension of the time about what was considered art and what wasn't. For Duchamp, placed on its side the urinal became a new and pleasing form, detached form its previous hygienic significance.
And you might want to stop making generalizations about other people. I DO think
White on White is a profound piece of art, and as long as any piece strikes me as emotionally powerful and aesthetically pleasing as that did, I will call it art, too.
Not that there isn't plenty of shit out there.
