Surely this is why people think so hard about the true and proper telos of their actions.
Art for art’s sake is practically wireheading. Art for decoration can be manufactured cheaply, to beautify life, and that’s fine. Making art can teach one the skills to make things, but then surely one should apply those skills on something with effects out in the world?
I don’t think the audience has an important cognitive role here. The creator can simply ignore them, or communicate to them in ways that uplift them (to educate them in ways they didn’t know they needed to be educated because the creator wants to uplift them), or the creator can simply choose to pander, and harvest resources in exchange for a recognizably valuable product.
One of my favorite artists is Thomas Kinkade. He did it all. His art was simply beautiful to normal people. He was the richestlivingartist ever in history during his own life, achieving actual worldly success, due to normal people actually paying a lot for his paintings (and even just expensive postcards of his paintings). (I think Jeff Koons holds the title now, and has him beat on the “ever in history”, but I don’t like his stuff as much.) Prestigious art snobs hated Kinkade, and he kept doing it anyway. But also, deep down, he actually did have “the soul of an artist”. The hate weighed on him. He was an alcoholic and eventually killed himself. At one point, at Disneyland, while drunk, he peed on a statue of Winnie the Pooh saying “This one’s for you, Walt.” Like I said… as an artist, he did it all.
In the first draft of this comment, I said “So far as I know, he never pivoted. He never tried to pander to the snobs.” However, then I went googling, and… apparently he had a vault full of stuff from many different styles, including some fucked up self portraits? I’m not sure if this downgrades him in my mind, or raises him to new heights. I’m glad that he was aware of what he was doing, though. Here’s a quote from the article I found that mentions his vault (bold not in original):
Yousef says she did not understand “how skillful a painter Kinkade was” before starting the film project. She points out that many other people were putting images of cottages on commemorative plates in the 1990s, “but they were terrible. His skill blew them out of the water. And now his style has become the archetype.”
Kinkade was also prolific. He created a new intricately detailed cottage painting every month, in addition to running his empire of prints and collectibles. He was one of the first people to make himself into a brand. “Andy Warhol would’ve respected his marketing genius,” Yousef says.
Warhol’s name comes up often in the documentary, and it is no accident that two experts on the Pop artist are interviewed in the film—the former Andy Warhol Museum director Eric Shiner and the critic and Warhol biographer Blake Gopnik. As Kinkade once said, “I’ve achieved the Nirvana that Andy Warhol dreamed of achieving. Warhol’s dream was that he would become a robot who just could push a button and his paintings would come out without him even being involved, and I’ve done that!” The performance artist reveals himself. Even Kinkade’s own family calls him one.
Amazingly, the artist’s wife, all four of his kids and his two siblings participated in the film, in addition to some of his closest friends and a couple of colourful superfans. They provided not only insightful interviews but archival images, home movies, boxes of fan letters, Kinkade’s teenage audio recordings and the all-important access to his vault. Yousef says that it was particularly important for her to give voice to his immediate family, who were often overshadowed by Kinkade’s public persona and success.
apparently he had a vault full of stuff from many different styles, including some fucked up self portraits? I’m not sure if this downgrades him in my mind, or raises him to new heights. I’m glad that he was aware of what he was doing, though
I think any skilled artist like Kinkade will be able to imitate many different styles, and will be very aware how their own style fits with the rest of art history. For example, Kurt Cobain could write music in different styles, and toward the end of his life he was getting tired of the screaming thing (yes, he very much saw the screaming thing as a style, separate from his personality) and wanted to make more softcore REM-like stuff.
Surely this is why people think so hard about the true and proper telos of their actions.
Art for art’s sake is practically wireheading. Art for decoration can be manufactured cheaply, to beautify life, and that’s fine. Making art can teach one the skills to make things, but then surely one should apply those skills on something with effects out in the world?
I don’t think the audience has an important cognitive role here. The creator can simply ignore them, or communicate to them in ways that uplift them (to educate them in ways they didn’t know they needed to be educated because the creator wants to uplift them), or the creator can simply choose to pander, and harvest resources in exchange for a recognizably valuable product.
One of my favorite artists is Thomas Kinkade. He did it all. His art was simply beautiful to normal people. He was the richest living artist ever in history during his own life, achieving actual worldly success, due to normal people actually paying a lot for his paintings (and even just expensive postcards of his paintings). (I think Jeff Koons holds the title now, and has him beat on the “ever in history”, but I don’t like his stuff as much.) Prestigious art snobs hated Kinkade, and he kept doing it anyway. But also, deep down, he actually did have “the soul of an artist”. The hate weighed on him. He was an alcoholic and eventually killed himself. At one point, at Disneyland, while drunk, he peed on a statue of Winnie the Pooh saying “This one’s for you, Walt.” Like I said… as an artist, he did it all.
In the first draft of this comment, I said “So far as I know, he never pivoted. He never tried to pander to the snobs.” However, then I went googling, and… apparently he had a vault full of stuff from many different styles, including some fucked up self portraits? I’m not sure if this downgrades him in my mind, or raises him to new heights. I’m glad that he was aware of what he was doing, though. Here’s a quote from the article I found that mentions his vault (bold not in original):
I think any skilled artist like Kinkade will be able to imitate many different styles, and will be very aware how their own style fits with the rest of art history. For example, Kurt Cobain could write music in different styles, and toward the end of his life he was getting tired of the screaming thing (yes, he very much saw the screaming thing as a style, separate from his personality) and wanted to make more softcore REM-like stuff.