Stupidity: A Big Picture

Art is perhaps the only occupation where behaviour that would otherwise be deemed stupid is embraced. In most other fields and in daily life, we avoid actions and statements that might make us look stupid. In art however, apparent openness to stupidity is not so much testament to the corresponding stupidity of the author (well, not always) but to the questioning of commonly held assumptions of what constitutes aptitude and mastery. Choosing to behave stupidly becomes a potential means of challenging institutions authorising intelligence. The list of art that critically engages stupidity is practically endless and well documented. As a result, this essay does not speak to individual art works or the intentions of the artists in the exhibition. Instead, it focuses on the paradoxically serious, but stupid, macro-structures that frame art today. These structures condition the knowing or unknowing stupidity of contemporary artists: the stupidity endemic to the global domination of capital, and the current accelerated stupidity and bankruptcy of Western global geopolitics. These wider interlinked lenses affect us all, whether we acknowledge it or not.