Last Bite: the same old shame

It happens over and over again. The shamefully avoided last bite of comfiture at an exhibition opening. Attendees and commissioners talking about the last trend of criticisms, enjoy the wine and the bites until there is only one remaining.

The reason is simple: not to be seen taking it. Rude, uneducated, gross. The contemporary art society is well established in terms of manners. From the rich collector to the ordinary biennial pedestrian, none of them dares to eat it, to taste it or even to see it.

What is in the culture of today that does not allow individuals to spontaneously choose what to do? The current don’ts include the unaccepted behaviour avoidance: medieval blood perhaps in the XXI century.

It comes to a dramatic discrimination of that biscuit or exquisite cuisine creation, which goes straight to the rubbish, and cannot be deliciously digested by any of the “distinguished” tasteful mouths and stomachs that surround those elegantly disposed tables.

The values of shame meet the ethics of trends and the aesthetic of prejudices, while appetite is reprimanded. Those who prefer not to be the shameful victims of those inquisitive art world eyes, stay away from that last bite and its deliciousness.

The environment still remains the same: Art is not part of the popular culture yet. It does not allow the informal and spontaneous conducts of the majority: the truthful and uncultured ones.

From a post-modern perspective, this is the remaining path to the rigid structure of the “same old same”. The continuous state of the post-industrial world, which present these reluctant militants who speak the “vocabulary of the shame”.

However, the hopeful existent capability to shake the moral stands firm. One in five exhibitions is marvellous, one in ten art pieces is brilliant and nine in ten gallery-museum-art centre goers are those who will not eat the last bite from the plate.