Thursday, October 13, 2011

Elvis and the Renaissance

Been spending some time recently writing a short piece for a friend of mine who runs the "Elvis Presley Challenge" blog at www.elvispresleychallenge.com

It's rather pompously titled Elvis and the Renaissance - although to be honest the title is really designed to raise eyebrows and catch people's interest more than anything else. It also isn't really about Elvis, but rather pursues a pet theory of mine about changing attitudes to art after the Renaissance.

It stems mainly from my interest in Byzantine art. My theory is basically that the Renaissance introduced an idea of the artist being "true to himself" that is not present in Byzantine art, and that this has led directly to the absurdities of artists such as Tracy Emin and Damien Hirst whose work is wholly self regarding. I once saw an interview where Emin was challenged to explain why her bed constituted 'art'. Her answer boiled down to "because I am artist, and I say it is". I think this move to wholly detach art from any connection to a wider audience, and from any need to be aesthetically pleasing is misplaced.

Hence the article on Elvis, which was prompted by a section in the book "Treat Me Nice" where the author expresses similar views about Elvis and his relationship with music in the 1960's.

I'll post a link to the article here once it's online.