An "artist's artist"

Years ago a friend put on a Frank Zappa record for me to listen to, he proudly proclaimed that Zappa was a “musician’s musician” and that his music demonstrated that he didn’t care what the audience thought at all, he was just in it for the experimentation. I had the same reaction to that music that the vast majority of Americans have had, disinterest. Music can be many things, but published, distributed or live music tends to work better when it acknowledges the audience, and dare I say, even invites them to participate in the experience. What Zappa was doing was fine for Zappa, but if he has no interest in the dialogue between the artist and the audience, then let’s not be surprised when his audience doesn’t have any interest in what he’s saying to himself, or maybe more accurately, what he’s saying to other musicians. Musicians, and artists more broadly, often have an intense point of pride of not catering to an audience, not “selling out” or “going mainstream”, and maintaining an artistic purity that is often only recognizable by other artists deep in their discipline. This artistic purity that is so valued by artists, I think is sometimes used as an excuse by artists as to why their art hasn’t achieve popular success, and maybe more often is used as justification for the jealously and resentment felt by artists when other artists do achieve popular success.

Valuing the opinion of expert artists in your field over the opinion of people ignorant to your art is entirely reasonable, everyone agrees on that, but there’s another phenomenon that arises which I’d like to explore. Artists (and their tangentials) will visibly and prominently disregard the opinion of the unwashed masses so as to strengthen their artistic purity. This paradoxical rejection of the audience’s opinion creating value for the artist incentivizes artists to create art that audiences don’t like, and especially to create art that the audience doesn’t understand. Historically, art has been valued for it’s virtuosity, more recently art has started to be valued for it’s expression, but now I see art that seems to be valued for it’s opacity to it’s audience. Art that doesn’t even purport to express anything, and doesn’t display virtuosity, for example an experimental abstract painting made with masking tape and a roller brush will reliably be met with quizzical albeit brief looks from the uncultured audiences ambling past it in the Orlando Museum of Art. This particular hypothetical artwork might be the perfect vehicle for the artist, and maybe more importantly people who have anointed themselves into the culture of pinky-raised, art literate, in-the-know to separate themselves from the unappreciative dull herd of the public. By finding artistic merit in works that the general public never will, the artistically-literate cadre in-the-know can signal their secret knowledge of artistic merit and their in-group status as the artistic elite.

Since the works that are used as a Rorschach to identify the elites from the plebes have to necessarily be rejected by the plebes, they have to be works with some element that would preclude them from popularity. Sometimes this is an element that makes them controversial, for example the Piss Christ by Serrano or the Fountain by Duchamp, fair enough. Other times these works are rejected by the masses because they fail to display any type of virtuosity or skill. Colored Field paintings by Rothco or drip paintings by Pollock all carry price tags that baffle the average American. Those ‘in-the-know’ value squares of brown paint on a pink background so much that they cost millions of dollars, and everyone else just sees brown squares on a pink background.

On behalf of all of the uncultured swine who have been made to feel dumb standing in art galleries for not “getting it” when looking at a brown square on a pink background, I’m calling bullshit. As an artist, you should listen to the opinion of experts far more than mine, but just because the public agrees with an expert doesn’t make them less correct. Michelangelo’s Pieta is lauded by experts and tourists alike, it is a masterpiece and everyone can agree. Art doesn’t need to confuse the little people to be ‘pure’ or worthwhile. Put your pinkies back down and just enjoy the beauty.