individualism and doubt

There is a part of all of this rationalizing and discussion of art that seems incredibly false; individuals pursue being artists and make money doing so.  The value of art and what an individual artist is paid for a particular piece of work must be acknowledged and considered in terms of expression; there is at least part of the purchase of an art work that is due to the individual that is "expressing" (or, to state it differently, part of the value of an artwork is due to the individual that produced it*).

Understandably, this is theoretical in nature; most artists make very little money off of their work.

Doubt, though, comes from how effective of a measure of value this is.

I've talked about the complexity of the concept of the individual as a sort of doubling, but now I'd also like to add the complexity of individual expression is also a matter of othering--othering within each individual.

Doubling of the individual isn't exactly the only way that the complexity of individuality reveals itself, but it is an easy argument for a richer concept of the individual, and there is something about a binary relationship that seems coherent in terms of individuals and aspects of their individuality.  I think it is important to note that the doubling does not refer to an emotion (i.e. the binary relationship is not happy - sad) but rather refers to two "units" of individuality--that the individual, despite its etymological history, is two units.

When there are more than one units of individuality, there stands the chance for othering.

Doubling and othering are not the same thing in most cases, but within a creative individual, I believe that they are not only parallel to one another, but exacerbate one another.  If I am at a point of self-doubt in my studio practice I am the one making individual expression and the other, the one that is working against my self expression, the one that is questioning each act in the studio.

You can hear references to this in writing about art and even in popular culture.  This morning on All Things Considered there was a story about the Islamic Art Now exhibition at LACMA and UCLA professor Ali Behdad referred to the artists in the exhibition as having "double consciousness", referring to them being both Muslim and secular.

How this most often manifests itself in my own studio practice is the doubling/othering of the artist that paints for the act of making and the artist that thinks about the market and what artists are required to do to have success.  Some times these individuals within me are in agreement and work together, but most often it is a negotiation between one (making work because I am alive) and the other (a working class person navigating a world of high priced commodities and affluent people).

The implications of this are quite profound, but also come with the possibility of ending anyone individual's studio practice, but I believe that the dialectics between one and the other are fuel for fire in the studio, or at least have the possibility to be fuel, if the differences within each of us are acknowledged and discussed.  Conflict is a strong motivator in terms of making art, and I believe that this is a conflict that can be harnessed.




*Obviously, forgery complicates this idea.

artist and consumer

I've been working on new theories of the relationship between the artist and the consumer.  These will only be working ideas--probably impossible ideas--that may never get resolved; but that, to me, is a sign of a productive line of thinking in something that is organic and will change over time.  

Simply, historical models of artist/consumer or artist/benefactor or patron relationship are: 

1) artist working for and/or selling to a larger organization (government, museum, church, etc)

2) artist selling to individual/group consumers, with "collecting" consumers

3) artist selling to individual/group consumers, non-"collecting"

4) artist producing work for ritual, religion*, socio-culture practice** where the consumer's role is perhaps not qualified by exchange of money.  

What we commonly call a "commission" could fall under any of these, though I feel that commission is often a relationship that has a high probability of exploiting the artist.  This is not to say a commission is good or bad, but practically is up to each individual artist to determine and agree to the arrangement of a commission and often ends with an artist sacrificing many aspects of her or his work to make the commission.  

Not included, because it is a different list/relationship: 

artist producing work without selling (no consumer)

Consumer purchasing a mass produced piece without an artist (no artist***)

Organization purchasing from a corporation****

  

More on this soon.

*I intend religion here to have more social implications as opposed to "church", in 1), which implies a governing body that commissions a work.  Religion, here, is meant to stand for relics, paintings, statues, etc made for religious purposes but are not paid for by the church to further the church's or patron's agenda.  The most obvious example of this would be patronage in Italian Renaissance painting.  

**I do not mean social practice as a buzzword as it is used too often in contemporary art, but rather attempting to define producing work that has a broader purpose (from the artist's perspective) within society and culture.  

***Contrary to any political statements or any other theories, corporations are not artists.  Some artists should be considered corporations as they employ many workers and function, organizationally, very much like a corporation in terms of production and their relationship to the consumer (Koons), and I am against this form of artistic production

****These theories are not based on Sotheby's selling to the Met, for example, as both the artists--who will only receive negligible profits from a sale like this in the best case--and consumer are confused, complicated, and frankly have little influence on individual artists.  

Commodity | Ideology

While watching Zizek + Fiennes' The Pervert's Guide to Ideology (full version available here) in the studio today, something came about that further complicates my understanding of capital (manifests as the art market for me, but also in the fact that, in terms of the art market, I am a producer of capital), consumerism, and my own views against these as priorities for living.  In talking about Coke, Zizek states:

"It was Marx who long ago emphasized that a commodity is never a simple object that we buy and consume.  A commodity is an object full of theological, even metaphysical, niceties.  Its presence always reflects an invisible transcendence."

And later, in talking about Starbucks, Zizek references the perfection of it as a commodity--that we are buying an ideology when we purchase a cup of coffee.

I drink Starbucks like its water, but I'm also aware of its implications: not purchasing something that benefits local business owners (forget localism for coffee--its just not grown in large quantities anywhere in the US besides Hawaii--interesting to think what that implies about the US's relationship to the Island-state), something that is from a large corporation (though I am generally supportive of some of the priorities the corporation has for its workers, including health insurance for part time workers), and that I am supporting Starbuck's mission.  What its mission is--its ideology--is incredibly complex and can be seen in a variety of forms, including its Consumer-Philanthropist* ideal (in that we can purchase a cup of coffee and, in doing so, donate to a cause, as Zizek states in the film), its posters describing "the good life", and all of the other manifestations of it as a brand--including affluence and privilege, something that I can not often be accused of espousing.  

All of this, though, becomes incredibly interesting and worth thinking about in terms of art as a commodity.  I know I've stated that we as artists can resist the commodification of art work to some extent, but it is admittedly idealistic; we are producers/workers making capital within a part of the economic system in which we live (in the US, anyway).  Is art, then, a "perfect commodity" in the ideas of Zizek?  Though it will take longer to figure out arguments of why it is not, I plan to do so.  Some statements that support the concept of the perfect commodity of art are listed below:

+  The "perfect commodity" allows the consumer to purchase the object and also purchase its connected ideology:  its funny to think of the art world having an ideology, because the surface reading is that it transcend ideology (and I might have even stated things that reinforce this before!), or that it has so many ideologies that it can't be linked to just one.  But here goes a simple ideological read of art (including the world, market, history, etc):
     a) Art is expression and communication
     b) Art prioritizes the "new", particularly through the concept of the avant-garde.
     c) Art is necessary to culture
     d) Art is a representation of culture
     e) Art is a privilege**

+ Does everyone who purchases art know about the ideology that is purchased with it?  Of course not--but neither does everyone who purchases Coke or Starbucks.

+ Transcendence is another aspect of the perfection of art as a commodity: in some ways, this might be the use of aesthetics and discourse around works of art these days, but the idea that one person will find on work of art particularly "moving" while another might find it drab points towards Zizek's (and Marx's) idea of transcendence.

This could go on forever--even flushing out the ideologies of art could be the start of a much longer text, particularly for a profession that sees itself as so multifaceted, accepting, and enlightened that it would deny the existence of any ideology in art.  I highly recommend watching the film.  A bit of what I am working towards is covered in Zizek's read of The Sound of Music in which he talks about the message (ideology) of the film is often read as the oppression of the church (as the main character is a free-spirited nun that is sent to live with the Von Trapp family) and how individuals can transcend this oppression; yet, in actuality, Zizek reads the ideology of the film as being the church's support of being free, finding love, pursuing your passions.

Similarly, I think art passes along the ideology that art is ideology-breaking, and has no agenda, when in actuality, we all have a number of ideas that are, in fact, ideological (and, in this sense, prevent true avant-gardism, original thinking, and personal work).  I'm going to need more than this one post to justify this idea, so stay tuned.


*See also Geoff Schullenberger's article "The Rise of the Voluntariat" on Jacobin's blog.  Slightly different concept, focusing on work and workers, but I think it can be linked to a rise of justifying consumption through charity (or perceived charity).
**Though I think the inverse, the idea that everyone should have access to art, is also an ideology of the art world.