Mundane’s a funny word. It’s such a subjective thing, yet, everyone seems to have a fairly similar understanding of where the line between every day and mundane lies.
Rob Davies, whose watercolour works are on display at the Williamson Art Gallery until 26th July used the term in his exhibition description.
Maeve Thompson uses it too in hers. At a long-table discussion last month, the word cropped up several times in conversation about very-not-mundane work on very-not-mundane subjects.
OK, so we’re all taught to look for the beauty in the mundane.
In art school terms, the mundane is probably most similar to ephemera. We’re taught to apply phenomenology (a philosophical term suggesting that there is a value to all experience, and that we can judge or prejudge objects and events in the same way as we do with other human beings).
So I get that artists are drawn to this idea of the mundane, because I’m fascinated by, and don’t get, the fact that artists are so ready to label their work as being about the mundane.
Mundanity (surprised that was a word… thanks spellcheck) is subjective. That’s the most important thing about it. Just because new northern line trains are boring to me, doesn’t mean they’re boring to someone else. Just because I get excited by dandelions, doesn’t mean others do too. Both could be equally mundane.
But somehow, we all appreciate and understand what someone means when they say mundane. It’s like saying the ‘holy grail of…’. It’s general, nonspecific, but we all just sort of accept it for what it is, and know that the subject simply hasn’t met the speaker’s required threshold for mild enthusiasm.
In many ways it makes ‘mundane’ a very useful word. Any audience member automatically knows that they can, to some extent, relate to the work, because they too have, at some point in their life, found beauty in something mundane (I hope).
The reason I’m focussing on this is because nearly every exhibition, event, or story in this paper relates to this idea of the ‘mundane’. It wasn’t intentional (it’s rare that anything is with this newspaper) but it’s sort of fascinating.
In many ways, this newspaper, which in most cases will be sat on a windowsill next to stacks of flyers when you pick it up, is pretty mundane. It’s a routine, monthly, print. It doesn’t cost anything, so doesn’t have any financial value. Obviously, to me, to the artists in it, and our regular readers, it’s more than mundane, but I don’t mind if it is to you.
Whether it’s this paper, an exhibition in it, or an unremarkable buddleia poking over a railway wall, I hope this rambling introduction to this month’s issue inspires you to find the beauty in something you’d normally see as mundane. Hopefully it becomes a habit.
