[-empyre-] For whom is art "made"?

[G.H. Hovagimyan]

Actually making art has a couple of components. One is an internal  
urge or curiosity that causes a person to become an artist. This  
means that a person seeks out and feels comfortable in the creative  
process of their art.  In other words an artist makes art for  
themselves.  If you ask about an external reason; an artists make art  
for their patron.  Art has nothing to do with the general public.  
It's not entertainment. It is not the artists' task to relate to the  
general public nor to seek any influence on them. Indeed, in a  
capitalist, commodity, marketing system the broad based consumer  
object/ service seems the most important. That is the confusion of  
your question. Art is more like aesthetic research but it is not done  
in an, "ivory tower."  I would have to say that art making is field  
research.  If you understand that all of the galleries, museums,  
critics etc.. are an external system that is not art but a  
consequence of the aesthetic research done by an artist than maybe  
that's closer to the reality of what art is.  If an artist is making  
art that involves the general public than that is what their  
aesthetic research is about.  But an artist can also make art that  
only involves one or two other people or no-one.  Stéphan Méllarmé  
said that all an artists needs is a poet and a patron.   Understand  
that poets in France at that time were people that wrote about art  
and were able to explain the work to the public. It was never the job  
of an artist to explain or relate to the public.  The patron is a  
person who recognizes the artists project and supports it with both  
emotional and monetary support.  That is who an artists makes art for.


On May 6, 2008, at 12:47 PM, Megan Debin wrote:

> How does current art production relate to the general public, to  
> the Joe Shmoe on the street?  How is the public really involved?    
> Shall we sit in our ivory towers and wax philosophical, using  
> complicated terminology that most of the general public does not  
> understand?  That is our job, right?  How can artists and critics  
> reclaim a true relationship with the people?  Why do we have these  
> discussions?  How does it relate to the larger population? And a  
> critical one: For whom is art made?

G.H. Hovagimyan
http://nujus.net/gh/
http://post.thing.net/blog/gh/






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