I heard a pretty interesting comment today from my painting teacher at Western Carolina University. He said that there was something strange about how artists (and I’m talking about painters here) have to be able to defend their position for making art and what subject matter they choose. Yet no one is asking a writer to paint a painting in defense of his writing. I understand this is an illogical supposition, but one that is somewhat truthful. What it proposes is that art is not valid until it has gone through a focus group type review (a critique) and that artists should therefore become even better communicators than they are artists, because it takes quite a skillful wordsmith to write up a meaningful artist statement. The more one thinks about this, even more issues spring up. For example, no one is asking a baseball player to defend what he does, or the WWF wrestler to write a statement explaining his attempts at leaping at his opponent in skin tight spandex. There is an artificial construct put in place that seeks to demonstrate that art is valid by having the very people that create it make that claim. I find that rather amusing given the fact that I am a fan of soccer, and yet I still have problems defending its validity in the face of someone who does not enjoy it. “It’s just entertainment… or the players have great skills” might the line go. But so what? Does the skill of kicking a little ball around warrant a multi-million dollar salary? Does a single game of soccer warrant a possibility that some people might end up dead, injured or In jail afterward because we know what emotions sports can bring up? Hasn’t everyone watched a game of sports and wondered what the hell these people were doing and thought how ridiculous the whole spectacle was? Yet I don’t see a single case where a football player, or Paris Hilton, for that matter, has to write up an essay in defense of what they do. As a society we just accept the benefits of those positions, their qualities as entertainment give them credence to exist in their own right, so why not painting? Why do painters have to constantly defend their position to the public when so much of the public willingly accepts the validity of cheap entertainment?
First, I would like to point out that in no way am I offering any sort of diagnosis of Slavoj Zizek’s speech impediment. This article/essay is a simple exercise in perception, and yes, a Zizekian analysis. What do we get when we apply Zizek’s theories to Zizek himself? The answer may or may not be surprising, depending on whether you are a Zizek follower or an anti-Zizek propagandist. In an analysis of The King’s Speech, Zizek points out that the king’s stuttering makes the king self-conscious and in a way embarrassed. As a divine ruler, the king of England should be a confident authority figure perfectly capable of assuming the role of the head of state. Delivering messages to the masses through oratory on the radio is just one of the ways that the king’s authority is projected to the public and if the people hear that in the voice of the king is a slight imperfection, this may be read as a fault that might preclude the king fr...
It's the last statement that got me to post this - ask Kevin Bacon about the degrees of separation that mean the most to him while we are at it!
ReplyDeleteAs many artists, no matter what the medium, can attest - this stuff is not for everyone, but it could be! A lack of cultural identity affords the deficit that is education in our modern era. Education is the key that unlocks the doors keeping this type of doctrine exclusive! A modern era painter can be Don Quixote or a cog, but the point is not everyone will do it and even fewer will see it unless you get syndicated. SO is the tragedy implied the painting, the artist or all of us?
Adam