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Orono Weekly Times - Wednesday, September 25,2002 - 8 ) Basic Black by Arthur Black BUT IS IT ART? A few years ago, Harper's Magazine published an essay called The Painted Word, by the American novelist, Tom Wolfe. It was a modest piece of writing - twenty or thirty pages long, tops. It's central premise? That much of what passes for Modem Art was a massive fraud perpetrated on an amazingly amazingly gullible public by three or four influential art critics and a compliant art establishment establishment of curators, dealers and other assorted hangers-on. The title of the essay came from Wolfe's observation that more and more modem works of art were appearing in galleries galleries with explanations of their significance printed beside them, so that viewers could understand what the works of art were really all about. It was Wolfe's contention contention that, as the art became more obscure, the written explanations were fated to become larger and larger, eventually eclipsing the works of art themselves. The subtext of Wolfe's message as I read it was: anybody anybody who would pay hundreds of thousands of bucks for an Andy Warhol painting of a Campbell's Soup tin or a Lichtenstein silk screen consisting consisting of a blowup from a True Romances comic book was someone who shouldn't be let out unless they were wearing their mittens on a string. I didn't really think much about Wolfe's essay until I saw the barrage of invective it gen erated. The letters to the editor editor section in the next issue of Harper's bulged with fulminating fulminating fusillades from art critics, critics, art professors, art gallery owners and other wounded Culturati. They called Wolfe everything from Judas to Homer Simpson. The Art establishment was angry with the dapper little guy in the white suit. But they also sounded just the teensiest bit scared. As if some little kid had stood up as the parade went by and said: "Hey, check out the emperor - he's bare-assed". I'd love to be able to say that Tom Wolfe's essay changed the course of Modem Art, but that would be misguided, misguided, if not foolhardy. I offer instead a cursory cruise through the back pages of recent Art events. The awarding of the $20,000 Turner Prize for 2001 for instance. It went to Martin Creed, a London artist, for his work entitled "Lights Going On and Off". The work of art was a vacant room in which the lights go on for five seconds, then go off for five seconds, then go on for... well, you get the picture. Unfortunately, that IS the picture - in its entirety. But that's okay because Creed's magnum opus narrowly narrowly beat out the second best entry, which, as the program described it consisted of "a dusty room filled with an array of disparate objects, including a plastic cactus, mirrors mirrors and old tabloid newspa- pers" In reality, Martin Creed had the inside track all the way. He'd already enchanted the Turner Prize judges with another work entitled "A Sheet of A4 Paper Crumpled Into a Ball". But lest you draw the conclusion conclusion that the world of Modem Art is disappearing up its own fundament, let me direct your attention to the work of California performance performance artist Richard Ankrom. His latest masterpiece is on display in downtown Los Angeles where 150,000 viewers viewers file past it every day. Actually, not so much file past as drive past. Ankrom's work of art is on display over the Harbor Freeway in downtown downtown Los Angeles. What Richard Ankrom did - and it took him two years to do it - was re-design a major overhead road sign. To do it, Ankrom passed himself off as a government workman, showing up each working day dressed in a regulation hard hat and safety vest, -his ladder under his arm. The modificar tions, done to exact Federal Highway Administration standards, standards, helped motorists navigate navigate a convoluted highway interchange. And the reviews? Raves all around. Traffic snarls, along with the attendant road rage, have dropped dramatically dramatically at the intersection. "The experts are saying that Ankrom did a fantastic job" says a spokesman for the California Transportation Department. "It's so profes sional they thought it was an internal job." In fact, the California authorities like it so much they plan to leave the modification in place. Ankrom says aside from creating a work of art, helping out motorists "was the whole point". Gee. 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