"Art" concerns "a canvas about five feet by four," painted only in white and varying shades of white, and three friends who come together, and then clash, over the artwork's existence. Although white paintings have been zealously discussed at several points in the history of modern art (as amusingly recounted in the program), the pallid picture is here the creation of a fictional artist named Antrios. The audacity of Antrios to paint something void of form and color, as Marc (Francis Guinan) complains, is rivaled by his friend Serge's (John Procaccino) willingness to pay 200,000 francs for it. The excellent script, production and performances don't perpetuate simplistic clichés, such as "my child could do that," but Marc's firebrand skepticism is fueled by a faith in his own assumptions. Likewise, Serge's able defense of conceptual art is intelligent without reliance on trendy art smarts—although he is faulted by Marc for using the word "deconstruction," Serge's taste is convincing.
At turns the audience must also consider the all-white painting's worth. Do we "get it," or is it simply an "expensive laugh"? Is it a conceptual endgame, or "white shit"? A third friend, Yvan (K. Todd Freeman), is caught in the debate, and like us, persuaded to see the painting from both poles. At length Yvan comes to represent the heart, Marc the eyes, and Serge the mind—our faculties of cognition that battle for dominance, and ultimately define how we know the world, and therefore who we are. Onstage, tempers rise and peak, and insults are flung. The white painting itself remains quiet. It is a screen upon which is projected the human drama; it coldly reflects the spores of contempt that molder beneath layers of brotherhood; it is nothing but a rectangle of space wherein limits are tested.
Reviewed by Centerstage!
Map it