linda fetch

The documentary “My kid could paint that” raises interesting questions about what art (or Art) is. In conjunction with this, I think a person should also watch “Who the $^&#$ is Jackson Pollock?” for more illumination on the relation between creativity, skill, craft, and the business of art.

First of all, “art” is anything someone calls art. This sounds stupid, but it’s the only possible explanation. The reason Andy Warhol’s Brillo pads or someone’s found objects are art is that they were identified by the creator/artist as “art” and there is a large enough “critical mass” of critics, artists, collectors, etc. who agree that it’s art to make it so.

Someone (Zappa?) commented that putting a frame around anything and hanging it in a gallery makes it art. That’s just a humorous restatement of the above: putting a frame around the piece of junk mail you were about to throw away is the same as you saying “this piece of junk mail is hereby a piece of my art.”

Now, does anyone else have to agree with this? Of course not. However, if you live in New York City, know a lot of gallery owners and critics, go to lots of shows, openings, auctions, wear a beret, and so forth, it’s very likely at some point that you can convince enough people that you are an artist to make it so. And if you’re actually able to get someone to pay for a piece, then you’ve really arrived.

The above paragraph may sound very bitter and cynical but it actually isn’t. This is just a simple reality.

A piece of art has zero inherent value (well, maybe not exactly true: a piece consisting of a one ounce cube of gold is worth about $1000 today). But if two people try to sell the cube of gold, one might get $100,000 for it because he’s (let’s say) Matthew Barney, a notorious artist, whereas I would get my $1000 because I’m Joe Schmoe at the jewelers’.

What I’m getting to is that really marketing and perception are all-important. A Jackson Pollock that accidentally made it into a thrift store and was sold for $5 is very likely worth millions of dollars in a normal auction. A Thomas Kinkade original that may sell for tens of thousands of dollars isn’t worth a nickel to me since I find them more cloyingly sentimental and any Norman Rockwell. So what is the actual, intrinsic value of those two examples?

I’ve never been to art school, but I hope it is drummed into young artists that, if they want to be successful, either as fine or graphic artists, they need to consider whether they expect anyone to pay them for their work.

I believe that art is always going to be made even if no one makes a dime from it. I believe that there are countless works of inspired beauty and genius in garages, attics (and even, sad to say, landfills) that probably no one will ever see, since their creators either never got a break or had no desire to try to market their works. But real artists (and musicians and maybe even writers) are still going to create because they have to.