Yes, very few people make a living doing art, and even fewer make a living doing the art they want. Maybe this is just me, but it seems like there's something about art that is anti-fascist and anti-capitalist. Authoritarians fear self expression, arts always seem the first to go when things get more conservative, and yet it has never stopped us. If they take everything away, we will draw on cave walls with charcoal from a fire, make dolls of corn husks, carve bones into beads, make bowls of mud, write stories in blood, make musical instruments out of anything, we will remember our history through song. We will pass these things down as evidence that we could never completely be silenced, we were here, we matter.
@RickiTarr Protest art has long been a precursor to larger social change. It's a cool subject to read up on. Here's a link for your followers as they please:
@RickiTarr Well said! The "AI" hype has got me thinking a lot about art, lately... and what it means to be an artist.
Artist, I think, is an identity, not a profession. Sure, some artists make money with their art (I have, tho not much) but most do not. In our hyper-capitalist culture, that might lead some NON-artists to say that unpaid artistry is amateur. But any artist (working or not) knows how to get to Carnegie Hall... "Practice, practice, practice!" 99.99% of being an artist is making art you'll never be paid for. That you might not even keep. That you might light on fire in the backyard in a fit of frustration.
Now, I'm glad I yanked all my art off the Internet years ago. You won't ever see my paintings, drawings, or sculpture online. They don't NEED to be online. It serves no purpose except to boost my ego (which honestly doesn't need it) and make me vulnerable to thieves, grifters, and other assorted internet scum like Sam Altman.
Art existed before the Internet. It will exist after the Internet.
No "AI" can sculpt a work of art that will last thousands of years and be dug up by future archaeologists, like those anonymous ancient sculptors from all over the world. Who made the Venus de Milo? We may have lost their name, but who they were is literally carved into stone. They were an artist and they tell us who they were through their work. Their work becomes their name, for all posterity.
When times are troubled, artists and their art might go underground, but it doesn't stop. If anything, history has shown that artists react to such times, expressing themselves even more forcefully. Such times inspire artists to new heights of honesty and clarity of vision. Whether we're talking about Picasso's "Guernica" or Munch's "The Scream" or, or, or, or... Artists make art about the world, and when the world goes to shit, artists make art about that shit.
@notroot 100% agree, no AI will ever take away self expression. I think we can definitely connect to other people using art, but in the end it is an act between the artist and themselves.
@RickiTarr love that Andrea Fraser got the cover. I would include Amanda Palmer in that audience. I've read about some of her projects and they are thought provoking and often disruptive.
@RickiTarr omg I dropped my drink!
Seriously, true story! I was watching and she did that and I legit dropped the glass I was holding and started screaming!! I was like, "omg omg omg"!
You were in a :blobcat_nervoussweat: uh..."non denominational" org if I remember correctly? One of those...very aggressively religious uhmm...orders? :blobcatfearful:
I'm Catholic. It was a WHOLE thing for like...omg. I'll be honest, Fr. SandyBlonde is probably still yelling about it. :blobcatlaugh: I'm sure he needed medication because he took that shit very personal.
It's been interesting as the faithful evolved and as some stopped being faithful.
@mentallyalex Yeah I grew up Protestant, and even they were saying how disrespectful she was. They don't take kindly to challenging religious authority
We delineate between Arts & Sciences, and I have said that "Science is the how, the art is the why"
Science taught us about gravity, lights, and sounds. That was great and helpful.
We couldn't have made Rocky Horror Picture Show without understanding those things. That is good. We needed Rocky canonically in our timeline. I'm glad science was there to help.
But if we only had science and no art...we wouldn't have RHPS and that would make humanity darker and less able to understand itself. That is tragic, in my mind.
@RickiTarr partly to do with the enlightenment ideologies of rationalism. how art is frivolous and the pursuit of weak minds but also about the squashing of free expression and individualism. unless your art is venerating the chosen myth of the authoritarians
@RickiTarr I did not pursue a career in art because I “knew” it was impractical, not the done thing. Even after graduating from art school, I still hedged my bet by being a programmer/designer. It took decades for me to accept that this is what I’m supposed to do. And, surprise, I am happy and doing well.
Hierarchies by their very nature are Authoritarian, structured in the idea that the ruler is superior to those they rule, that they only need followers to serve them, and peasants need a ruler.
Authoritarianism is the opposite of Artistry.
Artists seek to reach out and find common ground with their audience. It’s a reciprocal and collective experience in which we all help each other as we struggle to find beauty and meaning in an otherwise cold and indifferent universe. 1/
We all serve each other. An author inspires a musician, who inspires a dancer, who inspires a poet, who inspires a Teacher, who inspires a child, who grows up and changes the world by discovering something revolutionary that breaks open new fields of study that catapults humanity to hitherto undreamt of realms of understanding.
There is no hierarchy when we all seek to lift each other up instead of seeking to hoist ourselves above others. 2/2
@RickiTarr Art, to me - no matter how bad you or anyone else thinks it may be - is the ultimate proof that we could not be silent if we wanted to, the ultimate proof we were alive, the ultimate proof we were here, the ultimate proof that we loved while we were here.
@RickiTarr When I was at art school, there were a rare few who were going to make a living from their art. They were usually either traumatized in some way so they used art to self-medicate or they were narcissists. The former were what I'd think of as a 'genuine' artist, someone whose art shows the viewer something about their unadorned self. Everyone is capable of artistic expression even if you aren't a big noise in a fancy gallery. The fascists and hyper-capitalists can't take that away.
@RickiTarr I agree. One of my professors insisted that genuine art is something that provokes a visceral reaction upon viewing, either delight or revulsion. Just my own opinion, but I think if you see it (or hear it or touch it) and it gives you the sensation you need or want, that's good enough. One person's Bob Ross is another's Picasso.
@isotope239 Agreed, people ask me what I like, and I just see it and if I like it, I like it. But it's a good point, that art isn't always about making you feel good, just making you feel.
Well and also, a huge breakthrough for me came when I learned to recognized that I liked something, and then learned to look closer to figure out what about it I liked.
For an interest-driven #ADHD neurology, this is actually really damn important. (Especially if one's upbringing supressed knowledge or expression of individual interests—who me, bitter? Why do you ask?)
@isotope239@RickiTarr Yeah... nahh... Some art isn't meant to evoke an emotional reaction at all, but is instead intended to evoke an intellectual response. MC Escher springs to mind.
I'd say 90% of the art I've made had no intention, at all -- or nothing beyond the making of it. It just is what it ended up being.
@RickiTarr It might not make a living but creative works make for a nice life. Through writing I've made friends and been invited to parties. Traveled for special events. Once I wrote about losing all my old photos and was showered with old photos people had saved. All more than money alone could buy.
@RickiTarr Rudolf Rocker explores this in depth in Nationalism and Culture. He shows in depth how during periods of political unity and strong state domination, cultural production wanes and diminishes, while when the state is weaker, culture flourishes.
@RickiTarr They like pretty things they can brag about their friends to, but not art, because art at its fundamentals helps us to see the world as it is, or as it could be and it's a little too much truth for authoritarians.
@RickiTarr I agree to an extent. But there is a very long history of art that is firmly within the ruling establishment - especially with regard to religion. When we look at religious paintings by Caravaggio or Rubens or El Greco, say, what we are looking at is the culture of an all-powerful institution in physical form. When we listen to music composed in honour of the Catholic God, Mozart or Berlioz or Fauré etc, it's the same. These are in no way rebellions against the institutions, they are in no way outside the establishment.
Does that diminish them as art in any way? Of course not. The same is true of art dedicated to wealthy patrons, by Rembrandt or Vermeer or Gainsborough or whoever. Magnificent pieces, firmly within the establishment.
I would think, therefore, that art as an anti-establishment act is a modern development. Perhaps it is a product of industrialisation, and of the unionisation that followed, which won for the people a great gift: free time. Freedom to create removes the need for patronage in art.
Or perhaps because gradually capitalism has moved away from commissioning new art (or at least, new art that is of any artistic note) and towards buying art that already exists. Contemporary capitalism requires a dead hand on any cultural development that does not optimise returns.
Or, then again, perhaps it's simply that industrialisation made it so much easier for the tools of creation - paint, instruments, pens, cameras, computers - to be made accessible to everyone who wants them.
Perhaps, then, art is inherent to all societies under all circumstances, and the central question is whether or not people have the time and the tools and the freedom to create.
@RickiTarr@RolloTreadway That famous painting by Michelangelo of God reaching out to give life to Adam? The one in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican? The robe behind God is in the shape of a brain. Michelangelo knew what he was doing.
Somewhat tangential: Hitler wasn't a bad painter. He was actually better than most, I think.
But his art teachers comments hit the nail on the head: he didn't paint with anything of his soul when he painted. He was mechanical and linear. They were right, if you go check out his paintings on Google.
They weren't bad paintings but what those educators were saying was, that's not art, it's colorful architecture. It's math and rulers with paint over it.
Art isn't about a medium or a skill in particular, it's about putting your soul into things you create. That's why art can be everything from sound to silence and anything in between. Nothing proves that ideal more than the soulless bastard that was Hitler trying to paint.
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