Review: The Square

"The Square" of director Ruben Östlundfocuses on hypocritical, detached artworld discourse and the contemporary, fame driven culture from which it emerged. The opening scene condenses the themes present through the entire film, where the head curator of an art museum gives an interview that makes contemporary art seem like a con artist’s work, and admits that the biggest challenge for contemporary art museums today is “money.” A great cinematic moment that followed this scene and reflected on it with a... sharp and structured statement displayed the head curator getting robbed in a deceptive, street act. These scenes showcase the themes of the film which are followed all throughout, such as: deception, trust, humanity, money, class, power, reality vs. aesthetics, and absurdity. The film seems to say that contemporary art is a con deal whose purpose is to make profit on the expense of the public, while claiming to exist for the well-being and better good of humanity, yet completely unable to support this claim in any way. The contrast between the expensive art displayed in the museum claiming to exist for the purposes of ‘equality’ and the numerous shots of homeless people, beggars, and poverty that exists in the forgotten peripheries of society and the interaction between these two, shows art as an exploitative, aesthetic tool. It begs the question, what is it that distinguishes between these two? If anything displayed within the museum automatically becomes art, as was suggested by the head curator in the interview scene, then why are some objects, people, and everyday materials and life allowed this status while others who desperately need it, are not? What is it that gives some people value while denying it from others? What is it that renders some people ‘artists’ and some everyday objects ‘artworks’? The absurdity of the head curator responding that money is the biggest challenge to the art museum while never questioning his own understanding of contemporary art, which remains a superficial “art of today” and “cutting edge” shows the artworld’s disengagement with things that might actually matter, such as those whose biggest challenge might actually, really be inequality and ‘money.’