Art Defined by the Artist

Daniel Read — Wed, 11 Jan 2006 10:40:12 -0800

I won't pretend that we can settle the art/craft debate here, but I would like to add something that I find useful in my own thinking about it. To me, a "work" is "pure art" if the creator declares it so, especially if the process by which the creator made the work was engaged in without a utility or consumer in mind. The creator is in control of the context. Others are free to judge whether it's good art or not, but I don't believe that someone else has the power to say "That is not art."

I think this idea fits nicely, Edward, into your socio-economic analysis of art vs. craft, because it takes a certain level of socio-economic priviledge (call it luxury) in order to have a state of mind from which to proclaim, "I am making art for art's sake. It is not craft. I am an artist, not a craftsman." Only a person with a certain amount of freedom from concerns like where his or her next meal (or paycheck) is going to come from has the luxury of these kinds of thoughts--which is I think why we're still wrestling with this debate: because it's only recently that as a society we find ourselves in a situation in which large numbers of people have this kind of luxury. (There are historical exceptions, of course, and I'm not arguing that art and "pure artists" did not exist 200 yaers ago. I am speaking primarily in generalities.)

I am heavily influenced by the conception of art that arose from the modern art period of the 20th century. Whether or not one agrees with the recent survey of "art experts" who declared Marcel Duchamp's Fountain as the most influential modern art work, which owes largely to the story behind it, Duchamp's famous 1917 stunt of submitting to an art contest, under a pseudonym, a common everyday toilet. The point of Fountain, and I think the reason so many view it as the most influential work, is it says that the *creator* is in control of declaring what is art. To quote from the Wikipedia article I linked to, "Duchamp described his purpose with the piece as shifting the focus of art from the physical craft to the intellectual interpretation."

When museums with antiquarian collections of pots and fabric display these as "art" it is a recontextualization, inevitable due to the passage of decades and centuries, because in my view the people who made those beautiful pots and woven rugs were artisans, working for hire, or working to make a living. "Why are you making this rug?" Because my master told me to. Because people need rugs, and I need to eat, and I can sell this rug for money. The fact that rugs and pots are now mass produced and that the days of the master pot makers and rug weavers are over is less relevant to me.

Metaphorically I identify with the rug weaver of a thousand years ago, or the cabinet maker (like my grandfather, Bernard Johnson, who was a master cabinet maker in Fort Lauderdale, FL). The days of cabinet makers may be largely over (though I confess to being one of Edward's priviledged few who paid a craftsman to make his custom kitchen cabinets, even if the saw that cut all the wood was driven by a computer program working from a 3-D computer-based design), but here I am, here we are, a craftspeople in ether, making virtual cabinets for hire. Someday they may find a way to replace me with an automaton (and more power to them if they can--that's progress), and in a perfect world I wish I could be free of the need to work for other people, free to persue "pure art." In the meantime, I choose to approach my "materials" and my process as an artisan, not an artist.

This is where I was coming from in my original comment to Donna's post; I think the more you view your work as art as opposed to craft, the harder it becomes to reconcile with the compromises required to perform your "art" in that commercial context. My effort to view what I do as craft instead of art is way for me to make peace with the compromises I am forced to make on a daily basis, because I can view them as compromises my employer or client is taking on, not me. I don't choose to carry the burden. Perhaps this is an illusion on my part, and perhaps it is not sustainable. I suppose it puts me in the same bed as the 1950's "silent generation," who as Edward puts it "traded their ideals for safe corporate jobs." Guilty as charged.

Edward, I very much like this quote from your comment:

I would suggest that "art" and "craft", or theory and practice, are best viewed as members of a chemical or intimate bond, so intimate that UNLIKE the chemical elements, they disappear as "art", as "craft", as "theory", as "practice" when divorced from the opposing term.

And I agree with you totally, Edward, in your description of the real struggle of the artisan who want to make something both functional and beautiful. For myself, I choose not to work for employers who forbid attention to the aesthetic parts of the job, nor for employers who forbid putting energy into the unseen parts of the job, like error handling. Some people may not be so lucky to be able to make this choice and may find themselves stuck in a job that does not match with their own proclivities as a craftsperson. The artisan who yearns to make his or her products beautiful may indeed be much like the conflicted Gershwin described in Donna's post.

But I figure there's spectrum in any field, and always has been, between on one end a demand for unadorned, purely functional, and perhaps not even durable, artifacts and on the other end highly refined, artfully designed artifacts in which as much, or more, attention is paid to form as to function. Some craftspeople may find themselves unable to stomach producing work for the low end of that demand spectrum, but the demand for the low end is there, and someone will always be there to fulfill it.

Best,
Dan

What the CIO Wants You to Know (Part I)

Donna L Davis — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 16:51:33 -0800

In this mini-series of articles, I hope to vicariously offer some similar secrets relevant to technology workers. What you read here might surprise you...and how well you apply what you read could make the difference in your career...

developer.* Blogs - What the CIO Wants You to Know (Part I) - Comments

Art Defined by the Artist

What the CIO Wants You to Know (Part I)