"You either fit in or perish," or you do your work outside of the institutional mainstream and find alternative sources of funding. Artists don't have to undermine their integrity to do their work. It is possible to step outside of the bubble, an action artists used to take as part of their responsibility to the world: Be fearless and dedicated to your vision no matter what.
"You either fit in or perish," or you do your work outside of the institutional mainstream and find alternative sources of funding. Artists don't have to undermine their integrity to do their work. It is possible to step outside of the bubble, an action artists used to take as part of their responsibility to the world: Be fearless and dedicated to your vision no matter what.
"Be fearless and dedicated to your vision no matter what."
It's a powerful and inspiring statement. I also, personally, have found it a lot harder to do than one might think. I've found the rewards of following that path to be a lot of praise, sincere respect and the same black beans for lunch every day and dinner every night. The customers of one's art are as influenced by cultural fads -- in this case DEI -- as the artists themselves and it is much easier for them to withhold their money in favor of the current cultural fad than to think about the moral dimensions of the problem and derive their own conclusions.
Sure it is possible to тАЬstep outside of the bubbleтАЭ...if youтАЩre willing to make your art your side project instead of your career. If you want to тАЬkeep the main thing the main thingтАЭ, you need money, and the lionтАЩs share of any operating budget in the arts comes from grants and big-check donations.
Look, letтАЩs just be honest about it - Americans do not support cultural institutions. All the тАЬcultureтАЭ we have as far as this article is concerned is imported from Europe, and the art we DO produce (jazz) gets more support in just about every other developed country than it does here. WeтАЩre a тАЬbread and circusesтАЭ nation.
Historically, it is progressive-leaning organizations that supported the arts so the fact that DEI is rotting them from the inside out is no real surprise.
Why do you say money is necessary to create impactful works of art? Is this something unique to the fine arts?
Money obviously helps. But even in ultra-competitive indie scenes like music or indie game development, enough of the best stuff naturally gains recognition. Algorithmic recommendations tend to reward good reviews, repeated listens, social media referrals, and other relatively meritocratic metrics.
Well it depends on what you qualify as тАЬthe bestтАЭ, and who gets to decide that? тАЬPeople liking it immediately without having to make any actual effort to perceive/understand itтАЭ isnтАЩt exactly a metric for transformational works of art.
I would go so far as to say art and entertainment are a Venn diagram that, while intersects, does not overlap. EntertainmentтАЩs goal is to bring joy to its consumers with minimal effort on their behalf (to me). Art is meant to be challenging; to stretch the perceptions of the beholder.
Ms. Hall laid out the necessity for money in the fine arts above, allow me to do the same for music. Musical instruments cost money; rehearsal spaces cost money. Recording studio time costs money, playing shows and touring costs money. To record an album these days with a modicum of marketing, youтАЩre spending $10,000.
I also donтАЩt think itтАЩs a mistake that the lionтАЩs share of the music today is solo artists with electronic tracks. ItтАЩs much cheaper to produce and shows with two mouths to feed is more doable than ones with five. Technology drives costs down for the consumer; those costs come from somewhere.
As a painter, printmaker and sculptor, I need money to pay for materials, studio space, model fees, as I work primarily from life. Money is more critical to the survival of works of art over time. We have masterpieces that have come down to us from the Renaissance that we revere for their skill and meaning, but they may well have been lost if they had not been commissioned by wealthy and powerful patrons. Vincent van Gogh died penniless with hardly a sale to his name, and his works attained their high value status due in large part to the hard work of his widowed sister in law and the wealthy collector who purchased them. In our present day, much of what we callтАЭ artтАЭ is a commodity and status signifier. Who would boast otherwise?
it isn't progressive organizations which supported the arts. At least not in the modern use of the term progressive. Liberal? Yes. But liberals like me loathe progressives. More and more each day.
Liberals like me too. And what you say is true. Progressives have always thought that art should be political, which shows how little they understand or care about art. Not all liberals are progressive (as comments recently on TFP want to assert) - there are very many more like me.
I would disagree with your assertion about American support for the arts. In a previous association with a school for the fine arts, we were courted by Italians to open a location there. They were awed by how a nonprofit such as ours was funded by donations (and endless fundraising) when they were totally dependent on their governments, from city to state to the European Union and Unicef.
I will make the claim that you have cause and effect reversed. I can remember from my mid-century youth that average middle-class Americans often partook of the fine arts, when it was available to them. We and our neighbors listened to classical music, attended theatrical productions, went to exhibitions, saw the ballet, and had a few art objects around the house. Now, most of these were not high-level professional productions, being that we didn't live in New York or Los Angeles. But the intent was there.
To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, America didn't abandon the arts. The arts abandoned America.
Well, to be fair, I would reason that the television came about around this period of time you were describing, correct?
WouldnтАЩt it be fair to say that technology made it easier to consume entertainment from the privacy of your living room, rather than having to venture out into a theater or a music venue or gallery to experience art in person?
And how did the arts abandon America, exactly? How many theaters have gone under since the time you refer to due to lack of attendance and budget? How many dance halls have been abandoned, and sold to become lofts or whatever those buildings are now? When was the last time you saw a queue to get into an art gallery on a Saturday afternoon?
What were artist supposed to do, go into your home and grab you by the scruff of your neck and drag you out to the theater? I have plenty of musician friends that play original music to empty rooms most of the time. Artists are producing art. The audience canтАЩt be bothered to get up from the couch and the Netflix series, put on a pair of actual pants and participate in culture in this way.
And why would they? The entire catalog of popular music is available at the touch of a button in your Spotify app. Between three streaming services you have more content then you could possibly watch in four lifetimes. It is simply easier to scratch that nascent itch with an ersatz version of music, theater, film, art, etc. than go through the trouble of cleaning yourself up, finding a babysitter if required, spending the time and money to go to a venue and experience culture in real life.
The arts did not abandon anyone. Technology has wholly diminished the appetite for it.
I still claim the content is a significant factor. The local art museum here used to run off of donations. About 20 years ago, they started doing the type of exhibit where each artwork has a card alongside it telling you what you were supposed to think about it, and how it relates to the author's diversity. Most of these consisted of collections of random objects that looked like something done by a second-grader going through a junkyard with a hot-glue gun. One exhibition consisted of a painter who had apparently devoted his entire adult life to carrying out some sort of vendetta against General Electric.
It was at about this time that the museum abandoned the donation box and started charging admission. First, it was a couple of dollars. Then it was $5. Then it became $10. Now it's $20. And with each price increase, and subsequent expenditure of funds on "woke" exhibits, attendance goes down. The art museum is in a fine new building now, but attendance is about half of what it used to be when it was crammed into a spare office space, but it had interesting exhibits. (And no, I'm not the sort of person who considers a painting of dogs playing poker "interesting".) I live in a city full of well-educated people -- but in the sciences and engineering. The art doesn't speak to them. It lectures at them, when it deigns to address them at all.
"You either fit in or perish," or you do your work outside of the institutional mainstream and find alternative sources of funding. Artists don't have to undermine their integrity to do their work. It is possible to step outside of the bubble, an action artists used to take as part of their responsibility to the world: Be fearless and dedicated to your vision no matter what.
So easy to say, but when "dedication to vision" equals unnecessary poverty and being left out of society, that is a very high price to pay.
Not that its right, but I get it and why people cave. It is perverse as hell.
Easy to say, hard to do. People shouldn't have to live as outcasts because elites have decided to discriminate against them.
Yep and be poor and unsupported. Not very helpful advice.
Joseph Massey is, in fact, a poet who survived тАЬcancellationтАЭ. He means what he says.
"Be fearless and dedicated to your vision no matter what."
It's a powerful and inspiring statement. I also, personally, have found it a lot harder to do than one might think. I've found the rewards of following that path to be a lot of praise, sincere respect and the same black beans for lunch every day and dinner every night. The customers of one's art are as influenced by cultural fads -- in this case DEI -- as the artists themselves and it is much easier for them to withhold their money in favor of the current cultural fad than to think about the moral dimensions of the problem and derive their own conclusions.
Persevere, JB87...you are the Real Deal as an artist..but that position comes at a steep price, in this case, beans for lunch and dinner.
Sure it is possible to тАЬstep outside of the bubbleтАЭ...if youтАЩre willing to make your art your side project instead of your career. If you want to тАЬkeep the main thing the main thingтАЭ, you need money, and the lionтАЩs share of any operating budget in the arts comes from grants and big-check donations.
Look, letтАЩs just be honest about it - Americans do not support cultural institutions. All the тАЬcultureтАЭ we have as far as this article is concerned is imported from Europe, and the art we DO produce (jazz) gets more support in just about every other developed country than it does here. WeтАЩre a тАЬbread and circusesтАЭ nation.
Historically, it is progressive-leaning organizations that supported the arts so the fact that DEI is rotting them from the inside out is no real surprise.
Why do you say money is necessary to create impactful works of art? Is this something unique to the fine arts?
Money obviously helps. But even in ultra-competitive indie scenes like music or indie game development, enough of the best stuff naturally gains recognition. Algorithmic recommendations tend to reward good reviews, repeated listens, social media referrals, and other relatively meritocratic metrics.
Well it depends on what you qualify as тАЬthe bestтАЭ, and who gets to decide that? тАЬPeople liking it immediately without having to make any actual effort to perceive/understand itтАЭ isnтАЩt exactly a metric for transformational works of art.
I would go so far as to say art and entertainment are a Venn diagram that, while intersects, does not overlap. EntertainmentтАЩs goal is to bring joy to its consumers with minimal effort on their behalf (to me). Art is meant to be challenging; to stretch the perceptions of the beholder.
Ms. Hall laid out the necessity for money in the fine arts above, allow me to do the same for music. Musical instruments cost money; rehearsal spaces cost money. Recording studio time costs money, playing shows and touring costs money. To record an album these days with a modicum of marketing, youтАЩre spending $10,000.
I also donтАЩt think itтАЩs a mistake that the lionтАЩs share of the music today is solo artists with electronic tracks. ItтАЩs much cheaper to produce and shows with two mouths to feed is more doable than ones with five. Technology drives costs down for the consumer; those costs come from somewhere.
As a painter, printmaker and sculptor, I need money to pay for materials, studio space, model fees, as I work primarily from life. Money is more critical to the survival of works of art over time. We have masterpieces that have come down to us from the Renaissance that we revere for their skill and meaning, but they may well have been lost if they had not been commissioned by wealthy and powerful patrons. Vincent van Gogh died penniless with hardly a sale to his name, and his works attained their high value status due in large part to the hard work of his widowed sister in law and the wealthy collector who purchased them. In our present day, much of what we callтАЭ artтАЭ is a commodity and status signifier. Who would boast otherwise?
it isn't progressive organizations which supported the arts. At least not in the modern use of the term progressive. Liberal? Yes. But liberals like me loathe progressives. More and more each day.
Liberals like me too. And what you say is true. Progressives have always thought that art should be political, which shows how little they understand or care about art. Not all liberals are progressive (as comments recently on TFP want to assert) - there are very many more like me.
I would disagree with your assertion about American support for the arts. In a previous association with a school for the fine arts, we were courted by Italians to open a location there. They were awed by how a nonprofit such as ours was funded by donations (and endless fundraising) when they were totally dependent on their governments, from city to state to the European Union and Unicef.
I will make the claim that you have cause and effect reversed. I can remember from my mid-century youth that average middle-class Americans often partook of the fine arts, when it was available to them. We and our neighbors listened to classical music, attended theatrical productions, went to exhibitions, saw the ballet, and had a few art objects around the house. Now, most of these were not high-level professional productions, being that we didn't live in New York or Los Angeles. But the intent was there.
To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, America didn't abandon the arts. The arts abandoned America.
Well, to be fair, I would reason that the television came about around this period of time you were describing, correct?
WouldnтАЩt it be fair to say that technology made it easier to consume entertainment from the privacy of your living room, rather than having to venture out into a theater or a music venue or gallery to experience art in person?
And how did the arts abandon America, exactly? How many theaters have gone under since the time you refer to due to lack of attendance and budget? How many dance halls have been abandoned, and sold to become lofts or whatever those buildings are now? When was the last time you saw a queue to get into an art gallery on a Saturday afternoon?
What were artist supposed to do, go into your home and grab you by the scruff of your neck and drag you out to the theater? I have plenty of musician friends that play original music to empty rooms most of the time. Artists are producing art. The audience canтАЩt be bothered to get up from the couch and the Netflix series, put on a pair of actual pants and participate in culture in this way.
And why would they? The entire catalog of popular music is available at the touch of a button in your Spotify app. Between three streaming services you have more content then you could possibly watch in four lifetimes. It is simply easier to scratch that nascent itch with an ersatz version of music, theater, film, art, etc. than go through the trouble of cleaning yourself up, finding a babysitter if required, spending the time and money to go to a venue and experience culture in real life.
The arts did not abandon anyone. Technology has wholly diminished the appetite for it.
I still claim the content is a significant factor. The local art museum here used to run off of donations. About 20 years ago, they started doing the type of exhibit where each artwork has a card alongside it telling you what you were supposed to think about it, and how it relates to the author's diversity. Most of these consisted of collections of random objects that looked like something done by a second-grader going through a junkyard with a hot-glue gun. One exhibition consisted of a painter who had apparently devoted his entire adult life to carrying out some sort of vendetta against General Electric.
It was at about this time that the museum abandoned the donation box and started charging admission. First, it was a couple of dollars. Then it was $5. Then it became $10. Now it's $20. And with each price increase, and subsequent expenditure of funds on "woke" exhibits, attendance goes down. The art museum is in a fine new building now, but attendance is about half of what it used to be when it was crammed into a spare office space, but it had interesting exhibits. (And no, I'm not the sort of person who considers a painting of dogs playing poker "interesting".) I live in a city full of well-educated people -- but in the sciences and engineering. The art doesn't speak to them. It lectures at them, when it deigns to address them at all.
"The art doesn't speak to them. It lectures at them, when it deigns to address them at all."
Brilliant summation.