(Kinda) Art History: Lana Newstrom and "Invisible Art"

Imagine you're in an art gallery. It's the weekend, you've gotten out of the house, out on a day of fun and experiencing the local culture. You're excited. You've heard so much about this new, breakout artist that everyone's up in arms about and now you desperately want to see their exhibit. 

You've always loved controversy, especially in the art world. Always challenging what art means, how it can be made. You think you're an innovator, open-minded, that you can be accepting of odd or unconventional forms of art. You think Duchamp's work with readymades was revolutionary, and that art should be for everyone.

 And then you walk into the exhibit, the artist's name, Lana Newstrom, plastered on the wall, look around and think, much like I did when I first "saw" her work, 'What the f---?'

This young lady looks about confused as I do when I tried
to "look" at some of Lana's work.

I'm now too tired to continue on with this example so we're just gonna move on. In the fall of 2014, Lana Newsroom burst onto the art scene and started selling her "pieces" for up to $30,000 each. This in itself is kinda odd, most artists don't find such commercial success so early in their careers, but what made Lana's success worthy of what seemed like thousands upon thousands of controversial think pieces and articles filled with condemnation, was that her work is invisible. 

More than that actually, seeing as invisible implies that it exists and it just can't be seen. Lana's art only exists in her own mind. She says that she creates an idea of what she wants to make, thinks about the materials she would use, thinks about the process of creating it, and then.... doesn't.

Listen, I know that throughout this semester and last, I constantly repeated the whole 'no one can define art because the human race isn't a monolith", I mean at this point its practically my brand, but this is where I draw the line (ha, art puns). I'm about to become my own worst enemy but friends, this isn't art. Apparently, I do have a limit on what art is, cause this it.

However, unlike most people dismissing Lana, and any other art they don't like, I actually have reasons. I remember at the beginning of the year, Mrs Rose sat us down in a circle and had us go around answering some basic questions. One of those questions was: how do you define what is and isn't art? Most of us had no idea how to define it, what was allowed to be considered art or not, but something Mrs Rose said stuck with me, and I think it's become my kinda guiding principle in defining what art is.

She said that, for the most part, it's impossible to define art. That you can't dictate what will affect every person ever. But that for her, one of the only things that can make her feel like something isn't art is when it feels like the artist is trying to take advantage of its viewers. When she feels like there's some kind of manipulation or lie done/told to the viewer. And that's what this feels like. It feels like Lana knew that her normal work wasn't being recognized, so she decided to do something so outrageous and new that they'd have to buy it. It feels like a lie like she's taking advantage of her audience.

And that, apparently is where I stop calling something art.

P.S. So, after doing a bit more research into Lana and her "art", I learned that she's actually a hoax. The original reporting on Lana was done on a podcast, where you wouldn't be able to see Lana, her fake art, her gallery, etc. CBC radio decided to just play a little prank on the art community. So essentially.... I did all this work, and had a rather extreme personal crisis of my own judgement, for nothing. Huh. *flips desk and storms off*