Jesse Waugh
Monarch Danaus plexippus
2014
Oil on canvas
Art became nothing. The conceptual low-point or high-point – depending upon how you look at it – the bottoming out of conceptualism – was perhaps best represented by Simon Pope's 2006 Gallery Space Recall – which consisted of nothing. The gallery was left completely empty. While this may seem clever and amusing, it was the natural end to the endlessly ironic conceptual extrapolation toward which entire generations of "artists" strove. It was also an unoriginal, uninspired and obvious idea, which must have been done many times before. "There was nothing to see, but seeing nothing made you a philistine," wrote critic David Llewellyn about Gallery Space Recall.[19] Gallery Space Recall serves as an example to illustrate that while Modern Art may not be dead per se, the Modern era with its conceptualist aftermath is most certainly over. I personally entertain hopes that a New Beauty Era is emerging.
This is not to say that abstraction – as was witnessed in the empty gallery space at Pope's "exhibition" – in itself cannot be beautiful – as much Japanese Zen art and design would prove otherwise – and I have stated this outright in my
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