How does the artist function in society?
When I think of this question I always think of being in some social situation with non artists who ask you what do you do? When I try to explain the kind of practice that I have I always wish I could say instead….Oh!, I am a painter of landscape or portraits… It would be so easy then for them to understand and put me in an already well defined category…but I am not a painter of landscape or portraits…….. so how do we explain our function without getting reviews such as “a monument to self indulgence”.
I guess acknowledging the stereotypes that already are part of the culture is a good first step. I personally try to talk about my practice in such a way as to engage the person I am speaking with. Most are keen to understand..and most are fascinated. Perhaps though they are busy in there minds slotting me into some category.
As for Marx…
Is art considered unproductive labor having no apparent function..? You can’t eat it to survive..you can’t burn it or wear it……( well I guess in some instance you could?!) Marx certainly suggested that there must be a relationship between labor and function. The artist as profession came from patronage and religion and therefore was heavily linked to the leisure class. In his inscription of a utopian classless society would the artist have a place? Probably not!
I think we as visual artists are very valuable. I think we create, interpret ideas in ways that have implications for the society as a whole.
Two examples come to mind when I think of the more intellectual or cultural value we have as artists to a society. The first is the situation we have in Canada with Quebec. The Quebecois culture has been protected in Quebec.. not by English speaking Canadians but by the Quebecers themselves. In the 1970’s the elite..yes the intellectuals and artists took power of the province and developed cultural policies to establish and maintain language and history through the arts. They sunk masses of money into culture..as they knew that a people’s identity was linked to culture and to the arts… 35 years later the province is flourishing.. the language is in tact and identity is strong.
My second example is Czech.. The Velvet Revolution 1989 was led by artists …They were the generator ..the incubator or perhaps the thermometer of the imagination.. they put into writing, into poetry and into visual art the ideas and allowed the people to imagine a different governmental structure…the artists mobilized the people and from that the communist government fell and was replaced by artists… I realize too this is a cursory analysis but you get what I mean…
I am certainly not suggesting that we are revolutionaries but what I am suggesting is that in our very practices we perhaps are taking the pulse of our culture and through the work we do we create an opportunity for imagination and I believe imagination is the key to our global problem solving… …
When I think of this question I always think of being in some social situation with non artists who ask you what do you do? When I try to explain the kind of practice that I have I always wish I could say instead….Oh!, I am a painter of landscape or portraits… It would be so easy then for them to understand and put me in an already well defined category…but I am not a painter of landscape or portraits…….. so how do we explain our function without getting reviews such as “a monument to self indulgence”.
I guess acknowledging the stereotypes that already are part of the culture is a good first step. I personally try to talk about my practice in such a way as to engage the person I am speaking with. Most are keen to understand..and most are fascinated. Perhaps though they are busy in there minds slotting me into some category.
As for Marx…
Is art considered unproductive labor having no apparent function..? You can’t eat it to survive..you can’t burn it or wear it……( well I guess in some instance you could?!) Marx certainly suggested that there must be a relationship between labor and function. The artist as profession came from patronage and religion and therefore was heavily linked to the leisure class. In his inscription of a utopian classless society would the artist have a place? Probably not!
I think we as visual artists are very valuable. I think we create, interpret ideas in ways that have implications for the society as a whole.
Two examples come to mind when I think of the more intellectual or cultural value we have as artists to a society. The first is the situation we have in Canada with Quebec. The Quebecois culture has been protected in Quebec.. not by English speaking Canadians but by the Quebecers themselves. In the 1970’s the elite..yes the intellectuals and artists took power of the province and developed cultural policies to establish and maintain language and history through the arts. They sunk masses of money into culture..as they knew that a people’s identity was linked to culture and to the arts… 35 years later the province is flourishing.. the language is in tact and identity is strong.
My second example is Czech.. The Velvet Revolution 1989 was led by artists …They were the generator ..the incubator or perhaps the thermometer of the imagination.. they put into writing, into poetry and into visual art the ideas and allowed the people to imagine a different governmental structure…the artists mobilized the people and from that the communist government fell and was replaced by artists… I realize too this is a cursory analysis but you get what I mean…
I am certainly not suggesting that we are revolutionaries but what I am suggesting is that in our very practices we perhaps are taking the pulse of our culture and through the work we do we create an opportunity for imagination and I believe imagination is the key to our global problem solving… …
1 comment:
i agree with you again penelope. the proof is in the pudding. no one should have to define themselves using pre-set categories. be who you are, make your work and speak honestly about it. i don't think that is such a difficult notion. it just means we might not have the luxery of falling back on a title when we screw up!
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