
The Death of the Artist and the Birth of the Creative Entrepreneur - the_duck
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/the-death-of-the-artist-and-the-birth-of-the-creative-entrepreneur/383497/2/?single_page=true
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cossatot
>So “art” itself may disappear: art as Art, that old high thing. Which—unless,
like me, you think we need a vessel for our inner life—is nothing much to
mourn.

I think this essay would have been a lot more worthwhile if some effort was
spent discussing why we may need a 'vessel for our inner life' and how art
used to fill this role but is no longer as able. As a sociohistorical
narrative, it seems too pointed and filled with unsubstantiated statements to
be useful or interesting in and of itself.

Also, when critics discuss the democratization of "Art" like it's a new and
threatening phenomenon, I can't help but think about all of the wonderful art
that came out of folk music (of various traditions). There was a time, not so
different than the time when Picasso and Joyce were making their Art, when a
large percentage of the population played music in their small groups. This
lead to an incredible flowering of music as the 20th century progressed,
initially quite rooted in the folk traditions (including gospel music, vessels
of our inner life indeed). People being people and having a wide range of
talent, opportunity and motivation, it seems to me at least that
democratization definitely did not prevent geniuses from creating their Art.

I suspect that what these writers are really lamenting is not the fall of Art
or of Man but of Critic, as social media ratings threaten their revenue
stream.

edit: forgot a 'not'

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williamcotton
Those "folk musicians" were professionals.

Harry Smith's folk anthologies were just compilations of commercial music from
the 20s and 30s made by a professional record industry.

Sure, Alan Lomax went out and did some field recordings, but the really great
gospel and country blues musicians were definitely getting paid.

The songsters of the 19th century were professionals who toured with medicine
shows.

All those geniuses? They had the raw talent, yes, but also the opportunity
given by societal structures to hone their skills.

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erikschoster
Okay. So great, because capitalism has absorbed artistic practice in some way
into its structure, now artistic practice is capitalistic.

This makes little sense. It's funny to see that capitalist aping of artistic
practice is now being regarded as a new era in artistic practice by this guy
though.

Art has had a fascinating relationship to capital well before capitalism, but
to confuse its continuing ability to survive with some kind of fundamental
transformation of the practice is kinda silly.

Yes, okay: what is art?

The answer isn't: commerce. No need to go so far back, but just look to cave
paintings to discover that these ideas of economy and capital are only
sidelines and contextual footnotes to the practice of art.

~~~
williamcotton
Art has no utility but it exists in a world where the people that make it need
food, water, warmth and shelter and those have always had a cost.

I think his thesis stands up pretty well. Artists gotta fucking eat and that's
going to have a big impact on what and how things are made.

~~~
erikschoster
Does the fact that engineers have to eat change the nature of engineering
fundamentally if the way they are able to eat changes?

~~~
erikschoster
Can't reply to your comment williamcotton, but what you suggest doesn't change
the nature of the practice, just its practical focus.

~~~
williamcotton
I'm not really sure what you mean by "the nature of the practice" and
"practical focus" and how these ideas are separate from each other.

That nature of engineering is practical application.

What engineers are focusing on is what they will build. If they're at work
building iOS apps for commercial purposes they aren't going to be building and
publishing as many open-source libraries or tools. This affects the entire
ecosystem of engineering. It affects what kinds of tools and libraries get
built. Tools and libraries are "the nature of the practice". You don't program
in an object-oriented manner without having an object-oriented programming
environment.

As for art, if you're not getting anyone to pay you for what you're making,
you're gonna have to get another job. This is gonna have a big affect on what
and how you make things. You might respond by working as little as possible
and using cheaper materials. You might work a bit more but have a less time
consuming process. You might be able to find commercial work that utilizes and
promotes your artistic skills. No matter what, your process and therefor the
kind of art that you make is gonna change.

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imgabe
People may have a vision of a solitary genius, but that's not how many
successful artists work. Going back at least as far as the Renaissance many
artists were managing studios of other painters, sculptors, etc who would
produce the actual work. A lot of the most famous artists today still work
that way. Successful artists are, and have been for centuries, creative
entrepreneurs.

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themartorana
This is _very_ link-bait-y.

Declaring the death of anything is usually link-bait, but the death of the
artist is absurd. I get the argument, which is basically - the economics have
changed a bit.

But this idea that genius is gone and in its place is entrepreneurship, is
just so, _so_ silly. All artists are in marketing, sales, and so on, and
always have been. Dali was as much a self-promotion genius as he was an
artist. Not much has changed except the ability to view the past through the
curved lens of history.

Geniuses still exist in all of the arts. Nothing has changed. Nothing is dead.

~~~
williamcotton
_All artists are in marketing, sales, and so on, and always have been._

Let's take The Beatles. Sure, they captured the zeitgeist and handled the
songwriting and performance duties, but they had an incredibly skilled support
network that produced and engineered their records, made sure that people knew
who they were and got the best deals for live gigs, distribution, etc, etc.

Dali relied on an entire ecosystem of galleries, museums, critics, curators
and collectors.

Whatever concept of "lone genius" you're envisioning is pure fantasy.

