Who's Who?

Though billed as a work of fiction, the best-selling novel Primary Colors, by Anonymous, is accepted by political insiders as an accurate account of the machinations of the 1992 US presidential race - specifically the successful primary campaign of a certain southern Democratic governor, known both for his womanising and his wife's iron-fisted control. But even more interesting than the potboiler itself has been the furore it has caused among those eligible for the title of Anonymous: Countless column inches and television hours have been devoted to speculating on whodunit, as politicians and pundits clamour to be considered, if fleetingly, for the role.

But what if Primary Colors were a painting? Like a Goya, maybe, or something more entertainingly allegorical - a cross between a Jeff Koons and a Sue Coe - depicting a well-endowed Bill bonking an Arkansas bimbo as a bemused Hillary stands by, holding The Button? First off, I believe, no one would pay it much mind (such is the art world's snootiness about how it calls attention to itself). And even if the picture did make a splash, potential attributees would be running the other away, and fast. This has less to do with any perceived difference in status between literature and art, or between writers and artists than with the peculiar worthlessness of true anonymity to contemporary American culture.

Indeed, upon closer inspection, Primary Colors itself is anonymous in only the narrowest technical sense: it still features a narrator who's a fully developed character in the world of the novel, and packs the implicit promise that this disguised real author - rumoured to be a name-brand politician or journalist - will eventually be unmasked to even greater fanfare, around the debut of the movie version. An unattributed piece of visual art is usually much harder to fathom, and without narrator or acceptable stand-in, must rely on far cruder strategies to get its point across. Perhaps for this reason, modern art-world anonymity has been pursued in infrequent and provisional fashion, usually as an attempt to test the waters of controversy - undertaken sometimes out of genuine concern for an artist's career, but most commonly due to fear of being called an asshole. The best known precedent is Marcel Duchamp's 'R. Mutt'-signed urinal of 1917, a petulant stunt only confessed once it became successfully notorious.

Yet the paucity of anonymity in contemporary art is more to do with Americans' antipathy towards true anonymity, traditionally considered the purview of criminals and cowards. From the finance of political campaigns to letters to the editor, a policy of full disclosure is, if not legislated, then at least encouraged as a national virtue. In fact, the absence of a need for anonymous groups - political, social, or otherwise - can be considered a hallmark of a free and equitable society. Only in the inevitable lawless and undemocratic crannies - whether righteous or not - of such societies is anonymity still required: think of the Zapatistas in Mexico. Or, in the US, the Ku Klux Klan, corporate whistle-blowers and mob-trial witnesses. Or homosexuals most anywhere.

Of course, some consider the art world to be just such an undemocratic zone - none more vociferously than the Guerrilla Girls, the masked collective of women artists and art workers who publicly decry the overwhelming white-maleness of the art world. The usual explanation for their anonymity is that it protects their individual careers from the recriminations of chagrined gallerists and curators. But as in the case of Primary Colors, the tactic serves them well, exempting them from debate and making them - and their message - celebrities (even to their intended targets).

There may yet be a more appropriate use for anonymity in art - though to divine it, one must first recognise that, unlike some places in the wider world, art's need for anonymity is less than life-or-death. To that end, it's also necessary that one accepts - if not revels in - the fact that art is a plaything of the rich, free from the usual dull requirement that it serve a constructive purpose, and free as well from being held externally accountable (or laudable) for its actions. While limiting in one sense, this is the reason why more good cultural product can potentially be produced in the art world than in any regulated, nominally democratic system governed by proportional distribution and equal representation.

Along with unburdened freedom, however, comes complacency: Visual art is notorious among intellectual and creative disciplines as a place where, frequently, the more successful and established an artist becomes, the worse his or her art gets. (Quick - name an artist whom you think deserves a lifetime achievement award.) While this may dovetail nicely into a systemic requirement for an avant-garde (and provide grist for critics), it's a unique hobble.

In the music business, established stars use anonymity (however imperfectly maintained) as a way of trying out new or different material under a pseudonym or collective name. In film, actors and directors work on small independent productions, or go back to the stage. Of course, to tenaciously cling to a saleable style is understandable; in art, the money hardly ever comes up front. But if art is going to continue to bill itself as something intellectually and ethically superior to other forms of popular culture, it should start acting like it. Anonymity in art, therefore, should be the vigorous pursuit of those popular and comfortable artists who have reached a plateau of success that approaches the serenity of a blue-chip corporation. Constancy as a virtue in art is a self-perpetuating and self-defeating myth; stepping outside of oneself is a healthy and (more valuably) an interesting thing. For better or worse, if Primary Colors were a work of art, it should have been painted by Sol Lewitt.