You have a piece of art, be it a painting, a video screen or a piece of free-standing sculpture. And this piece of art elicits a certain response in the viewer.

But as the artist or creator of this artwork, you have to give it a name. And the name you choose to give it elicits a different response. Or explains away too much.

And so here’s a viewer who’s seen an artwork and now they’ve got two ideas in their head about the same piece. This is where the whole notion of ‘Untitled’ came into the world. Not wanting to add anything to the artwork by having a title get in the way, artists called the work ‘Untitled’.

But to my mind there are now so many ‘Untitled’ artworks knocking around that the word has just become part of the art establishment and /or lost its usefulness. In any open-submission art competition nowadays, far too many of the entries are called ‘Untitled’.

And so we come to numbers

The numbers used however can’t mean anything. There’s no point on the day that you make the great decision to use numbers as titles in calling the first painting Number One and the second painting Number Two. That’s just logical and easy to work out.

The whole point of numbers as titles is that they should be arbitrary and pointless because titles are pointless and have nothing to do with visual art. 726 I think makes for a good title. No special reason. Just came up with the number. 

It shouldn’t matter if ‘726’ was a painting of a pope screaming or of dogs playing cards. ‘726’ as a title could then easily be ignored. But this is the Art World. It wouldn’t be, would it.

Ok. I’ll admit it, I’m old-fashioned. I like Art on Walls. Paintings. Drawings. Photographs. Frankly life is way too short to care about Art that does nothing for me. If someone comes up to me and tells me that I should open my mind and give it a chance, let them read their text and go to the performance at 6 p.m. sharp; like I said, Life’s too short.

Give me painting any day. Photography is a very close second but it’s the paint…

But in this brave new on-line world of ours, the fact that the painter puts his or her all into the work and it might take weeks or even months to complete would apparently mean nothing. The painting must get photographed for the obligatory social media channels and it is this which is now truly important. (It’s alright when the artist is a Hockney or a Tuymans; the exhibition has been planned before they even put brush to canvas. The up-to-the-minute photograph is not so necessary. It’s when the artist is young or unrepresented. The photograph/web-site/social-media has become everything).

The Photograph Becomes The Star

And if the artist has no money, the artist themselves often takes the photograph and after all that blood, sweat and tears going into the original painting, it is the photograph of the painting and not the painting itself that becomes the star.

And a rubbish, pixelated, and often badly-cropped photograph of the hard fought-for painting shows up on Instagram and a slightly less pixelated photograph shows up on the web-site and it is by these measures that Joe or Josephine Public judge the work, and often curators, fellow-artists, judges and potential collectors also.

A Chance At The Big Lights

But awful as these things may be, thousands of artists are getting a greater chance to be seen as a result. The cities with an Art Market of Note around the world can probably be counted on two hands. If you live outside of New York, London or Hong Kong you might make a living as an artist, but you probably won’t get a chance at the Big Lights. However with the advent of those inadequate, pixelated and badly-cropped images everyone gets a chance.

I did my first ‘Untitled’ painting a few weeks ago. I’m torn between ‘Untitled’ as a naming device. I’ve always considered ‘Untitled’ to be a dog-lazy way of coming up with names for paintings. But by the same token I’ve always felt that the English language (or indeed any language) has nothing whatsoever to do with visual art. I mean why should the name by which a painting is known have anything to do with the actual image itself.

But apparently it does.

I entered two small paintings of a measuring tape and a clamp into an art competition a few years ago. As a joke, and to give the arty-set something to talk about, I called the painting of the measuring tape (which was quite clearly a picture of a measuring tape) ‘Window’ and called the painting of the clamp (not pictured), ‘Car’. But I wasn’t being profound or thoughtful in any way. I was laughing at them.

And now, while I ponder on the idea of titles, I’m thinking did I only get into that exhibition because the picture of the measuring tape was called ’Window’? Was it necessary for the higher authorities in the Art world to have both picture and words to think about and discuss. Is the image on its own no longer enough?

Well if that’s the case I’m rightly fucked. I was 52 before I managed a painting of something that didn’t look like that particular something (we’ll call it abstract). Is it going to take me another fifty years to get the titles similarly vague and mysterious? It would appear that painting a picture of a dog and calling the painting ‘Dog’ is not acceptable practice.

‘This is me’ is the name of a somewhat famous song from some musical but to the best of my knowledge it’s not possible to copyright three common words in a given language put together in any particular order so there ya go, ‘This Is Me’ it is.

I had promised myself that I’d do one of these ‘post’ things at least every four weeks but needless to say I’m late. Some day I’ll be late for my own funeral, which will be a pity because I have plans for a very nice tune by Nina Simone to be played at it and I’d like to be there for that bit.

But I digress. Wouldn’t be me if I didn’t. This is me. Yes. The whole ‘This is Me’ thing came about when I took one of those ‘selfies’ in my shed while I was painting and I thought to myself ‘Jesus, I look like ‘the old man down the road who paints’ that the kids on the street might talk about in hushed tones. The mad bastard. Not someone you’d want to meet after dark.

And the thing is, that’s not me at all. Wouldn’t hurt a fly. But I care not for that shaving business and I can often look like a grumpy sullen fucker so that could well be the impression that people get.

But give me a shave and a haircut, put me out among other people and before you know it you might even get a smile out of me (my daughter took the second shot. Would never have managed a smile on my own).

Judging The Book

You see you can NEVER and SHOULD never judge a book by its cover. If you’re judging the person IN the image; they might and probably will look completely different in the next shot you see of them. If you’re judging the person who CREATED the image, i.e. the artist, one image will never give you the full idea of what they’re all about.

That’s why curators and gallerists want to see at least 5 – 10 images. They’re not going to get a real sense of what the artist is about with anything less. Everyone can fluke that one great gem. It’s coming up with number two, three and four that is the hard part.

Did you ever see an image on one of those general IG accounts like Abstract Art or Figurative Art and you say to yourself ‘oh he’s quite good. I’ll check him out’. And lo. It turns out it was only that one painting that was any good. The rest is derivative heft. Occasionally it has to be said the artist is solid and a genuine find, but sometimes they let you down and it turns out that they are just a one hit wonder.

There are more strings to Dolly Parton’s bow than ‘I Will Always Love You’ and Led Zeppelin have more to them than that turgid ditty ’Stairway To Heaven’. Ultimately you should never judge a book by its cover. The ‘cover’ might of course be all there is to said book. But then again. It might not.