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

[Megan L Debin]

Thank you for your thoughtful response. I had indeed forgotten to consider the idea of art making as field research. I very much like that metaphor. Thank you, G!

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Megan Lorraine Debin
M.A. Latin American Studies, UCLA


-----Original Message-----
From: G.H. Hovagimyan <ghh at thing.net>
Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2008 5:20 PM
To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] For whom is art "made"?

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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