>So “art” itself may disappear: art as Art, that old high thing. Which—unless, like me, you think we need a vessel for our inner life—is nothing much to mourn.
I think this essay would have been a lot more worthwhile if some effort was spent discussing why we may need a 'vessel for our inner life' and how art used to fill this role but is no longer as able. As a sociohistorical narrative, it seems too pointed and filled with unsubstantiated statements to be useful or interesting in and of itself.
Also, when critics discuss the democratization of "Art" like it's a new and threatening phenomenon, I can't help but think about all of the wonderful art that came out of folk music (of various traditions). There was a time, not so different than the time when Picasso and Joyce were making their Art, when a large percentage of the population played music in their small groups. This lead to an incredible flowering of music as the 20th century progressed, initially quite rooted in the folk traditions (including gospel music, vessels of our inner life indeed). People being people and having a wide range of talent, opportunity and motivation, it seems to me at least that democratization definitely did not prevent geniuses from creating their Art.
I suspect that what these writers are really lamenting is not the fall of Art or of Man but of Critic, as social media ratings threaten their revenue stream.
Declaring the death of anything is usually link-bait, but the death of the artist is absurd. I get the argument, which is basically - the economics have changed a bit.
But this idea that genius is gone and in its place is entrepreneurship, is just so, so silly. All artists are in marketing, sales, and so on, and always have been. Dali was as much a self-promotion genius as he was an artist. Not much has changed except the ability to view the past through the curved lens of history.
Geniuses still exist in all of the arts. Nothing has changed. Nothing is dead.
All artists are in marketing, sales, and so on, and always have been.
Let's take The Beatles. Sure, they captured the zeitgeist and handled the songwriting and performance duties, but they had an incredibly skilled support network that produced and engineered their records, made sure that people knew who they were and got the best deals for live gigs, distribution, etc, etc.
Dali relied on an entire ecosystem of galleries, museums, critics, curators and collectors.
Whatever concept of "lone genius" you're envisioning is pure fantasy.
it isn't just that the economics have changed a bit though, its that the changes in the economics seem to have a disproportionate affect on what artists try to say with their art vs making art that appeals to the customer. What having a single or small number of patrons means vs everyone being your customer.
Okay. So great, because capitalism has absorbed artistic practice in some way into its structure, now artistic practice is capitalistic.
This makes little sense. It's funny to see that capitalist aping of artistic practice is now being regarded as a new era in artistic practice by this guy though.
Art has had a fascinating relationship to capital well before capitalism, but to confuse its continuing ability to survive with some kind of fundamental transformation of the practice is kinda silly.
Yes, okay: what is art?
The answer isn't: commerce. No need to go so far back, but just look to cave paintings to discover that these ideas of economy and capital are only sidelines and contextual footnotes to the practice of art.
I'm not really sure what you mean by "the nature of the practice" and "practical focus" and how these ideas are separate from each other.
That nature of engineering is practical application.
What engineers are focusing on is what they will build. If they're at work building iOS apps for commercial purposes they aren't going to be building and publishing as many open-source libraries or tools. This affects the entire ecosystem of engineering. It affects what kinds of tools and libraries get built. Tools and libraries are "the nature of the practice". You don't program in an object-oriented manner without having an object-oriented programming environment.
As for art, if you're not getting anyone to pay you for what you're making, you're gonna have to get another job. This is gonna have a big affect on what and how you make things. You might respond by working as little as possible and using cheaper materials. You might work a bit more but have a less time consuming process. You might be able to find commercial work that utilizes and promotes your artistic skills. No matter what, your process and therefor the kind of art that you make is gonna change.
People may have a vision of a solitary genius, but that's not how many successful artists work. Going back at least as far as the Renaissance many artists were managing studios of other painters, sculptors, etc who would produce the actual work. A lot of the most famous artists today still work that way. Successful artists are, and have been for centuries, creative entrepreneurs.
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[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 45.5 ms ] threadI think this essay would have been a lot more worthwhile if some effort was spent discussing why we may need a 'vessel for our inner life' and how art used to fill this role but is no longer as able. As a sociohistorical narrative, it seems too pointed and filled with unsubstantiated statements to be useful or interesting in and of itself.
Also, when critics discuss the democratization of "Art" like it's a new and threatening phenomenon, I can't help but think about all of the wonderful art that came out of folk music (of various traditions). There was a time, not so different than the time when Picasso and Joyce were making their Art, when a large percentage of the population played music in their small groups. This lead to an incredible flowering of music as the 20th century progressed, initially quite rooted in the folk traditions (including gospel music, vessels of our inner life indeed). People being people and having a wide range of talent, opportunity and motivation, it seems to me at least that democratization definitely did not prevent geniuses from creating their Art.
I suspect that what these writers are really lamenting is not the fall of Art or of Man but of Critic, as social media ratings threaten their revenue stream.
edit: forgot a 'not'
Harry Smith's folk anthologies were just compilations of commercial music from the 20s and 30s made by a professional record industry.
Sure, Alan Lomax went out and did some field recordings, but the really great gospel and country blues musicians were definitely getting paid.
The songsters of the 19th century were professionals who toured with medicine shows.
All those geniuses? They had the raw talent, yes, but also the opportunity given by societal structures to hone their skills.
Declaring the death of anything is usually link-bait, but the death of the artist is absurd. I get the argument, which is basically - the economics have changed a bit.
But this idea that genius is gone and in its place is entrepreneurship, is just so, so silly. All artists are in marketing, sales, and so on, and always have been. Dali was as much a self-promotion genius as he was an artist. Not much has changed except the ability to view the past through the curved lens of history.
Geniuses still exist in all of the arts. Nothing has changed. Nothing is dead.
Let's take The Beatles. Sure, they captured the zeitgeist and handled the songwriting and performance duties, but they had an incredibly skilled support network that produced and engineered their records, made sure that people knew who they were and got the best deals for live gigs, distribution, etc, etc.
Dali relied on an entire ecosystem of galleries, museums, critics, curators and collectors.
Whatever concept of "lone genius" you're envisioning is pure fantasy.
This makes little sense. It's funny to see that capitalist aping of artistic practice is now being regarded as a new era in artistic practice by this guy though.
Art has had a fascinating relationship to capital well before capitalism, but to confuse its continuing ability to survive with some kind of fundamental transformation of the practice is kinda silly.
Yes, okay: what is art?
The answer isn't: commerce. No need to go so far back, but just look to cave paintings to discover that these ideas of economy and capital are only sidelines and contextual footnotes to the practice of art.
I think his thesis stands up pretty well. Artists gotta fucking eat and that's going to have a big impact on what and how things are made.
That nature of engineering is practical application.
What engineers are focusing on is what they will build. If they're at work building iOS apps for commercial purposes they aren't going to be building and publishing as many open-source libraries or tools. This affects the entire ecosystem of engineering. It affects what kinds of tools and libraries get built. Tools and libraries are "the nature of the practice". You don't program in an object-oriented manner without having an object-oriented programming environment.
As for art, if you're not getting anyone to pay you for what you're making, you're gonna have to get another job. This is gonna have a big affect on what and how you make things. You might respond by working as little as possible and using cheaper materials. You might work a bit more but have a less time consuming process. You might be able to find commercial work that utilizes and promotes your artistic skills. No matter what, your process and therefor the kind of art that you make is gonna change.
The author wants all artists to be like Elon Musk, in how freely they can pursue their craft.