I can’t decide who is more responsible, You or Us.Perhaps its best we share the blame for the entire debacle, but we simply cannot dispute that neither party takes the artist any more seriously than Henry VIII did his Fool (that would be Will Sommers…who pretty much loathed himself, too).
I blame Us…artists…for the default disdain We have for Our elusive audiences. I blame Our tendency towards indulgent work made to garner lavish, self-congratulatory praise from Our own small collectives. Oh, and I blame the haphazard, disorganized, and downright anti-social manner in which We live Our lives. Honestly. Who should suffer Us fools?
But I blame You, too. I blame You for thinking Us charity cases…for shunting Us into bread lines for government handouts. I blame Your soulless pursuit of arts familiar, easy and reassuring. I blame Your patronizing gaze as You scuffle pass the stage door after the show. That taut, solemn grin of Yours that says: “there but for the grace of God go I.”
Oh, the lengths to which We must go to get You to pay Us!
We know, we know…what We do looks so damn easy. It really does. And so fun! Then afterwards, We’re all so merry…charged by the energy from the stage! Honestly. Isn’t Your attention, our just desserts?
It is for the fools among Us, but not for the true.
You see, not one of Us can make a living these days making Our art. Because even when We truly respect You, hand-craft work for You, and manage Our affairs within an inch of Your rule…at the end of the day, after all that We pour into the thinking and the making and the giving…You still think Us, cute.
Like that kid who played Plymouth Rock and kept forgetting his lines…
Kid should have learned his lines. And You…you shouldn’t have been gleeful when they failed him. Because now he thinks that plays are silly, and that not doing the work is kinda the point. Mr. Rock now understands that people on stage are fools to people in the audience.
So one day, Mr. Rock, will be a self-indulgent artist who hates You…and as a consequence, can’t pay his cell phone bill. Or…he will be one of those kindly patrons who pat their artists on the head, compliment them for “learning all those lines!” and then direct them to the nearest government grant agency.
Is it You or Us? Who to blame?
Both, I think. Both parties circling each other at a distance…a dim, withering regard between the groups. Your picket signs read: “GROW THE FUCK UP!” “PAY YOUR BILLS ON TIME!” “GET A REAL JOB FOR GOD’S SAKE!” While Our signs read: “YOUR KIDS WEAR STORE-BOUGHT HALLOWEEN COSTUMES!” “YOU HAVE NO TASTE!” “SELLING IS NOT MAKING!”
All the while You and Us circle, fuzzy in the distance, there is another way.
Them.
They respect each other, find value in each contribution. They challenge each other. Yes…Those folks are on to something.
I dunno, Chris, I think we're purveyors of commodities, we artists, that succeed or fail for the same reasons that any other commodities succeed or fail. I think that ALL human activities have the potential to rise to the level of art. But even the most artistic efforts may fail to be perceived as such, or may be perceived as such but not valued because they satisfy no perceived need. Market forces. Supply & demand. Occasional dumb luck. Isn't that the way of everything? Even love?
ReplyDeleteI saw a documentary on hulu last night. "Salesman." 1969 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztFDqcu8oJ4). Suffocating. As an artist, I feel a certain kinship with these guys.
Actually, the hulu link is here: http://www.hulu.com/watch/167889/salesman. (I think the air-powered car in the YouTube link is a good idea, by the way. Doubt we'll see them over here any time soon.)
ReplyDeleteRecently heard someone say this: "Imagination is the process, creativity is the product." I tend to agree with that...would add that you should compensate me for the "creative" I make, that you like. Which would be your commodity idea. The problem arises when the creative you like seems to have arisen from easy, cheap, or fun activity on my part...and because of that, you feel like you shouldn't have to pay for it. In other words, you don't respect it as work. You like it, but you don't assign a legitimate value to it because you think that you could do it to.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, SALESMAN is considered the most objective and important documentary ever made. The Maysles Brothers are documentary legends and have many other fantastic films worth seeing. http://www.mayslesfilms.com/
ReplyDeleteI don't like speaking in subjectives: Writing about 'artists' as if there were one body called 'art;' writing about audiences of art, as if there were a collective, bourgeois viewer.
ReplyDeleteI can't speak for all 'arts.' but I know that writing is; has been; and will be a practice of the leisurely. No one reads Ulysses without first the time to read Dubliners and Portrait; and no one reading Proust wakes at dawn to work the fields. Like the early scientist trading conjectures on chateaus and fiddling with frivolous alchemies; or more like Montaigne in his tower, eluding the very society he scrutinizes - writing elicits expression and produces valuable, tangible currents that rip through society: but its most substantial contributions are derivative in abstract, and abstract is dreamy, and dreaminess is always a luxury of the well rested.
So don't chuck your coxcomb at the miller's mob just yet. Value the audience. We may be as much a production of their interests as their outlets are an offspring of ours.