Do artists have a responsibility to speak out?

Art and Social Life - Georgy Plekhanov

An oldie but goodie.

Plekhanov shows, among other things, that "art for art's sake" often becomes "art for money's sake". OTOH,

Georgy is far from the last word. But he's a good place to start.

In answer to the title of this thread, absolutely. Artists have a responsibility to speak out becaus everyone has a responsibility to speak out. For an amazing read on this issue I would highly reccomend Howard Zinn's "ArYtists in Times of War". As an artist myself I particularly like this part:

I'd agree with both those views.  Artists should have the same responsibilities as any other citizen of conscience, although I wouldn't reject the entirety of their works or what they say based entirely on their political views or personal failings.   I know very few people who have spotless reputations and far too many artists who have suffered unfairly because of the bourgeois conventions of their day.  Its n0t always clear to anyone what is a universal issue and what a mere social trend or artifice -until the talent comes along to illuminate it first.  I might boycott them if they're supporting an obvious injustice though.  Other citizens shouldn't feel obligated to support even the greatest talents if they're selling out to pirates or worse, making them out to be princes.

I think artists are like scientists in the respect that they are pressured into delivering what the market is willing to pay. And the market doesn't always reward the best work or what should be produced for the greater good. Throughout history, the market has rewarded great artistic talent after the artist has died and their great works made rare as a result, and which is not much of an incentive for the artist to appreciate market ideology.

I am not an art expert, but I tend to believe that, yes, artists have a responsibility to express all kind of things that are important to society besides doing art which depicts rare beauty or unique artistic perspective. But artists have done all of this throughout history by what I can tell and in spite of market diktats.

Artists do not have a responsibility to "speak out" any more than anybody else does.  They are not obligated to be "people of conscience", and in fact there have been some extremely self-absorbed and conscienceless examples of artists who were, nevertheless, extremely good at the creative end of things.

Artists express, but they are in no way obligated to be politically inclined.  As an artist, I say that those of you who have these expectations should get stuffed.  I'll pick my messages and I'll express them when and how I CHOOSE. 

Yes, Ms. Atwood. lol.

Hitler was an artist.

Well, yeah, but a crappy one.

Today, he'd have a chain of discount painting stores like Thomas Kinkeade, "Painter of Light".

Bravo, TB. Fully agree. And imagine this: There are people who lambaste Margaret Atwood for not boycotting Israel, but say nary a word when Jack Layton says he doesn't support BDS. Atwood held to a higher standard than Layton. In Canada. In 2010.

What a farce.

How about we poll Canadian jazz musicians and ask whether they want immediate Canadian withdrawal - now - from Afghanistan? Anyone who is ambiguous, we boycott their concerts and recordings.

Just don't ask the politicians. We might not know what to do with their answers.

Hey folks - the thing about a boycott movement, in its nascent stages, is you're supposed to persuade and convince people of all walks of life to climb on board. Political representatives have a far higher responsibility than pop singers and writers of fiction. I didn't say they have more influence. I said more responsibility.

What does Noam Chomsky say about BDS?

Pablo Picasso was an artist. And thank goodness the world knows what really happened at Guernica because of Pablo. The fascists' lies were destroyed with one painting.

But you could also argue that depending on the art, like certain kinds of music (hip hop, punk rock, afrobeat) and visual art (installations, collage, graffitti) that it's the artists message that makes the art resonate, beyond it's visual/aural appeal.  

"The measure of true or high art is how confrontational it is"

Rod Swenson

Also from Howard Zinn's "Artsts in Times of War":

Really, its a very good essay.

But to Timbandits comments above.... I absolutely agree. And when I said that artists do have a responsibility, again, it is only because they are people, and everyone has that responsibility.

I'm curious about your thoughts and the question of art itself. Many people I know in my field, theatre, say things like, "oh, I don't like political theatre, I just want to entertain". Personally I hate the term "political theatre". All theatre is political. The choice of stories we chose to tell is a political decision. Wondering if this holds true for other fields of art as well, in other's humble opinions.

Unionist, the question wasn't "do artists have MORE of a responsibility to speak out than politicians?", for God's sake.  I don't think anybody was saying that we should push creative people to take stands on the issues while letting elected officials and party leaders off the hook.  Why did you think anybody was calling for politicians to be given an easier ride than artists?

No, Ken, he was simply pointing out that they are given an easier ride than artists at the present moment.

The politics of a work of art are evident in the work itself in ways that are much more complex than are soundbite answers to yes/no questions or questions about, eg, which year the occupation began or where an individual stands on a specific policy. There have been artists, eg, whose commitments to the dispossessed or the oppressed have led them irl to support political parties we would not consider progressive.

I don't consider art amoral or apolitical, exactly -- it's just that it isn't those things in the first place. Ethics and politics participate in aesthetics, or eventually they show through, but they aren't the driving logic of art. (Catchfire can put this better than I can. Where is he?)

Moral thought when it becomes "moralizing" is often irritating to people with an aesthetic tilt, not because they wish to be immoral but because that's not the way their heads work, and also because both ethics and politics seem shakier in their commitments to truth and mental liberty. An artist might wonder about her own "responsibility," and in fact I think most do; but many will bristle instantly at the moralist's tendency to call others out, to demand that others prove they are responsible, either by denouncing something or by taking a loyalty oath, moralizing at its worst.

There's a reason that so many artists contributed to the historical development of our understanding of civil liberties.

Catchfire is watching the World Cup, banning trolls and pretending to read Friedrich Kittler. And planting horseradish and leeks at halftime.

Of course art is inherently political, and we all "speak out" through art. Georg Lukács, a Hungarian Marxist critic from the early twentieth century, used to criticize the newfangled modernist artists for spending too much attention to form and style and lacking the "realism" of good ol' bourgeois writers like Sir Walter Scott and Honoré de Balzac, who, according to Lukács, showed class relations as they really happened. What he missed, of course, is that the very fact of moving from holistic realism to the inviolate subjectivity of stream-of-consciousness writing, fractured personhood and displaced, Gothic history (best articulated by Stephen Dedalus's famous quote in Ulysses, "History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake) was itself a political move, evincing the pressures of modernity and capitalism, and the response of the cultural dominant which tried to mitigate an increasing sense of isolation, alienatation and fragmentation. These fragments I shore against my ruin, etc. And who is Lukács to tell artists how to write anyway? Especially in an older, anachronistic form.

But "speaking out" as a public figure is a different thing than explicitly "speaking out" with either agit-prop or otherwise polemical art (not always successful, but American novels of the 1930s, and Bertold Brecht for one, do pretty good work). I'd say the former question should apply to all subjects equally: does everyone have a responsibility to speak out? I think artists take this question to heart because they are always "speaking out" on a daily basis--it's simply a distinction of frame. Like skdadl says, artists are generally much more in tune with the power of words and their ineffable connection with the individual's place in society. It's why--and Atwood acknowledged this debt--artists around the world have been intimately involved with some of history's greatest struggles, and often imprisoned, immiserated and executed for their troubles.

The question of a politician's responsibility to speak out is interesting to me, but I don't see a lot of "speaking out" in general from elected representatives. There's a lot of speaking, to be sure, and maybe that's all politicians nowadays think they need to do. Perhaps they're right. But to me, speaking out for all of us is critical to democracy: not just the ability and freedom to speak (often, wrongly, considered enough to qualify as "freedom of speech") but the freedom to be heard, and the freedom to effect change with your voice. Artists understand all three of these freedoms--the best understand it in their very bones. So in that respect, it sure would be nice if the best ones, who are best qualified to succeed in all three, make use of their privilege.

Pablo Picasso's "Guernica" censored at U.N. in 2003 Anti-war painting was covered over as a favour to shock and awe fascists

You may not have read all the threads. But there are people on this board who have condemned Margaret Atwood and Leonard Cohen (for example) in rather loud terms, and called for them to be boycotted, because they have not abided by a BDS directive. Some of these same people have not said one single word of criticism of Canadian political figures who would rather jump off a cliff than say anything negative about Israel.

Can you imagine Jack Layton saying, "I'm sorry, my caucus are forbidden to visit Israel"?

Or, can you imagine him saying, "I'm sorry, Mr. Israeli Ambassador, my colleague who said 1948 and who spoke sort of favourably about BDS doesn't speak for my party"?

So if there's going to be a double standard - and I think there should be - self-styled progressive political figures must be held to a much higher standard than individuals, no matter who the individual is.

Yes - exactly. And that's why the loud condemnation of artists for not complying with a nascent movement which as yet all too few public figures espouse is bound to be counterproductive, even if the motives of the condemners are pure.

Here's another point:  Artists and those in the cultural industries may not be progressive.  So if the requirement is to speak out about our political beliefs, let's have a round of applause for Charlton Heston, hmmmm? 

And that famous actor, Ronald Reagan.

[Israel drift]Our stooges puffed up their chests to speak out against South African apartheid way back then.

And then they did absolutely nothing about it on the diplomatic front, just as today's colonial administrators did nothing about attacks on Gazans in recent years. Jack Layton at least condemned the attacks and have called for an end to the blockade.

We don't need politicians scoring cheap political points with Israeli apartheid if they are not prepared to do anything about it by using Ottawa's established diplomatic channels at international levels. Israel's largest supporter is Uncle Sam, and our Colonial Administrators in Ottawa will do nothing to upset their imperial masters in Warshington.[/]

Charleton heston

"

Has stated that he sees no contradiction with his work as a Civil Rights activist in the 1960s and his advocacy for gun ownership rights in the 1990s, insisting that he is simply promoting "freedom in the truest sense."

  [24]

Volunteered his time and effort to the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, and even marched alongside the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on a number of occasions, including the 1963 March on Washington. In the original (uncut) version of King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis (1970), he was narrator. [24]

  [24]

Though often portrayed as an ultra-conservative, Heston wrote in his 1995 autobiography "In the Arena" that he was opposed to the McCarthy witch hunts of the 1950s, was against the Vietnam War and thought President Richard Nixon was bad for America. [24]

'Grapes Of Wrath' And The Politics of Book Burning

And Steinbeck's candid photos of grinding poverty in depression era America were powerful reminders to Americans of how laissez-faire capitalism just wasn't working for far too many. Grapes of Wrath was banned by a number of US libraries but circulated far and wide in the former USSR then for some reason.

For those who would like to defend some Joycean paring of fingernails by the "independent" artist, perhaps they could also add what God it is that such artists serve, if not some version of their understanding of the public? Does a writer want a goddam audience or not?

Good grief. The artist as someone who "shocks" bourgeois sensibilities, or the one who sells many books, or albums, or CDs, or the one who kicks a football really well, or the one who shoots a puck really well, ... all of these artists hardly exhaust what we on the left mean by artistic responsibility. It's no different, perhaps, than a great scientist in the service of humanity versus a great scientist ... developing napalm or a hydrogen bomb. We expect and want them to view their own work as somehow in the service of humanity.  If they only serve themselves, who gives a shit anyway?

[/end rant]

I don't quite understand this statement, Beltov. Are you saying an artist should always write for the largest audience possible? Does that exclude writers like Joyce (who wanted, and succeeded, in being a populist)? Does it include writers like Steinbeck, a very conservative and right-wing writer (and for that matter, Tolstoy and Scott, who by all accounts were aristocrats on the wrong side of revolution--but they could see the end coming clearer than their radical counterparts). Does it include the sensationalist and sentimentalist middle-class writer Harriet Beecher Stowe, who did so much to end American slavery?

Rant taken and appreciated, N.Beltov, although a number of us have been thinking of artists who never especially made much money. And who decides what kind of commitment is "in the service of humanity"? I think that most artists believe that art is that already. I certainly do.

Fidel, try a comparison between Steinbeck and his almost exact contemporary, John Dos Passos (whom Sartre, for one, considered the greatest writer of his time, in spite of his later politics). It was Dos Passos I was thinking of earlier when I said that many artists who have written (or otherwise created) out of a commitment to the dispossessed or oppressed also take party or policy positions irl that we would not consider progressive.

It is a wonder and a gift that Picasso painted Guernica. It is also true that he took care of himself in Paris during the occupation, and I don't mean that as much of a compliment, although nobody is required to be a martyr ... I guess ...

Let's not forget Elia Kazan, as well. One of the most prolific stage and screen artists in the history of America, and yet...

In this case an artist speaking out actually ruined the lives of others. (arguably). I suppose the other question bouncing around is to what extent an artist's work should be divorced from his personal beliefs. If we deny ourselves the work of people who are generally assholes we lose out on Streetcar Named Desire, Kind of Blue, and Terminator!

Skdadl, I'm embarrassed to have to admit that I know nothing of Dos Passos. Some of his works sound familiar, but I will have to look him.

Steinbeck I am somewhat familiar with. I guess few are perfect, but everyone has at least one story to tell.

A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do. Bob Dylan

Hey, Fidel -- none of this embarrassment stuff. I talk about literature because I love literature and I believe it should be for all the people, not just elites. It is definitely the most accessible form of art, and the least socially intimidating (you can read a paperback under the covers with a flashlight if you're feeling rilly shy). I sure haven't read all of it, and I'm grateful when someone tells me about someone new. Catchfire does that all the time, damn him. I mean, thank you, Catchfire.

I hope the kitty is well, Fidel.

Smokey's one foot in it, and my mama's been gone since middle of May. I really miss her. She was 85. Dazed and confuzed now. It's like there's no horizon for a reference. Missing my heart. How can one exist without their heart?

Oh, if you're wondering about your heart, Fidel, that means you've got one. Don't worry: it will find you. *hugs*

My answer is hell no!

However, I do think it should be an innate response in every culture to react against injustice.  In a culture where this is not the case it is a human necessity to ease and transcend sorrow and one may choose to do this through art but the onus is on the culture as a whole to get healthy.

Heston's reputation as a right-winger actually stems from the 1980's when he opposed the efforts of Ed Asner, who at the time was president of the Screen Actors Guild(the union film actors belong to in the U.S., and a union once headed by Ronald Reagan) to move the SAG to the left on many issues.  Heston was particularly offended by Asner's opposition to Reagan's Central America policies and by Asner's expressions of support for other unions in their struggle against corporate demands for wage cuts and layoffs.

Heston illustrates the maxim that the older a neoconservative gets, the further he marched for Civil Rights as a boy.

Catchfire: I thought the idea was straightforward even if in the form of my rant. Every artist has an intended audience in mind. And there's no escaping those necessary tentacles of social connections. It's this latter point that is important to me. I wanted to put a kibosh on the idea that an artist needs to be persuaded about the reality of the social connections, their role in artistic creativity, etc., etc.. The idea that an artist is "above" or outside of social life reflects, I think, what old Georgy wrote about 100 years ago; the artist at odds with her/his social environment.

I did not want to give the impression that I thought, for example, that Balzac wasn't a great artist. He depicted the rising bourgeois brilliantly. Brilliantly. You could also say that in television, for example, Mad Men does an excellent job of depicting those Madison Avenue lunatics who have had such a big effect in advertising and marketing and in social life in general in our current form of society.

OTOH, I watched some of The Sopranos, when it began, and very quickly lost interest. I don't care what gangsters do. Seeing them all die, in a pool of their own blood, screaming in pain, would have been a satisfying and early end to the series. Sadly for me, this didn't happen. lol.

Bob Dylan has made no bones about his use of the electric guitar at Newport, so long ago, and the changes that he championed in music. It was about Bob making lots of cash. Unfortunately for his critics, Bob Dylan was also gifted by a monstrous talent - a gift from God is a term I would use were I religious in that way - and so it does no good just crapping on him generally. He's like Balzac, eh? Can't avoid him.

Sorry about the rant. Sometimes I get like that. Carry on.

Tom Morello said something along the lines of 'All music is political' (can't find the exact quote). He was referring to the fact that music can either be a vehicle for awareness, or a distraction from the issues which really matter.

"A pamphlet, no matter how good, is never read more than once, but a song is learned by heart and repeated over and over. And I maintain that if a person can put a few common sense facts into a song and dress them up in a cloak of humor, he will succeed in reaching a great number of workers who are too unintelligent or too indifferent to read." -Joe Hill

Plenty of great thinkers, and artists, have made this point over and over again. Behind Joe Hill are thousands.

It would be a helpful exercise to collect such expressions.

I do think, however, that the world would be better off if Wagner HADN'T "spoken out".

The last bit, starting with "The function of music ..." is worth looking at. I think, myself, that what music can do is more than what the JSO violinist has stated. It's a funny thing, but great artists are often just as tongue-tied as the rest of us in describing what they do, etc.. This does not mean, however, that what they do is a mystery.

Now, let's see what Woody said:

Woody, e.g., wrote "This Land is Your Land" as a response to the jingoistic "God Bless America" that Kate Smith (later) made so famous at Philly Flyer hockey games.

Ya! that's what I was trying to say.

on the cusp of electricity dylan sang:

"While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society’s pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he’s in"

Electric guitars for cash?

They were all protest songs. c'mon.

OK, I'll bite. Here's "protest song" Dylan ...

That's the sort of song that Woody Guthrie would have upchucked over. And here's a parody by John Lennon that mocks the gratuitious injection of religion into Bob Dylan's songs ...

ha ha. I'll take a large helping of John Lennon, thanks, and give ol Bob Dylan a pass on this one.

Gotta Serve Somebody

Serve Yourself [44]

you lost me. gotta serve somebody is an inflated ego check.

Anyhow PE has a good question HOW DO YOU SELL SOUL TO A SOULLESS PEOPLE WHO SOLD THEIR SOUL???

No, John Lennon mocked the gratuitous injection of religion into Dylan's music and this piece in particular. Dylan's song says "Obey!" and Lennon's says, "To thine own self be true" (and mum, of course).

Furthermore, it is not just Dylan's lyrics that reflected his musical and artistic views. See Electric Dylan Controversy - although I will not vouch for Wiki being completely accurate.

I was going to wait until morning to post, but I noticed that Dylan song, which I happen to think is great.

I know he wrote it when he turned Christian, but there are plenty of jesus tunes that work just fine as non-religious liberation tunes, and that is how I heard this one the first time I heard it.

As ebodyknows said, it's about pride (including religious pride), and to me it says that you have to choose to work for good or work for bad, and you can't avoid it because doing nothing and wasting yourself is definitely a choice for bad. It's a pretty straight message.

Interesting how art says different things to different people, eh?

I'm sorry. First of all...I have to ask why does dylan's song say obey? It's not evident to me.  It's not even dubious like the possible interpretations of rainy day women.  Are you trying to prove with the wikipedia article that bob is a self serving artist? I don't get it, even if I ignore everything else I know but what's in the article.

Did you listen to the public enemy song? I was a teenager in the 90's. I listened to public enemy before I learned everything I could about dylan.  I was interested in Dylan because I lived in the suburbs and there was a great derth of culture let alone pop culture with any kind of intellectual component.  Dylans greatest protest is that pop culture should not be trivial and dumb.  There is no controversy that Dylan going electric opened doors for everything that came after.  Public Enemy is the quintesential pop 'speak out' artist.  Rap was and maybe still is modern urban folk music.  You can denounce all pop musicisians as sell outs but you can't denounce dylan and embrace pop artists for their politics.

Dylan's song about "Serving Someone" has everything to do with religion and bugger all to do with social activism. It's about antipathy to social activism, in fact, and is an expression of religious "pride". That's why John Lennon mocked it so mercilessly - Lennon was, after all, an atheist (and was eventually murdered by a Christian fundamentalist) . Dylan's song is about abandoning the struggle for social justice and "finding Jesus" instead.

Even though this has more to do with the Christian phase than electric guitars I still don't believe you.  Can you explain your stance with direct reference to the music?

The boring repetitiveness of Dylan's song makes that rather obvious, doesn't it? What do you want, a sledge hammer of obviousness over the head?

If anything thinks this particular song of Bob Dylan is a vehicle for social activism, or something like that, then social activism has become passivity for such people. Dylan made many influential songs that did an excellent job of conveying the necessity of participation in the struggles for social justice. This isn't one of them.

The boring repetitiveness is all you got?

BTW I'm familiar with your pop music, in the interest of keeping this conversation from being one sided you should acknowledge my pop music.

Well, we don't have to stick to pop music anyway. And it's probably a good idea not to ... especially if the thread gets into a pissing match about artistic taste. That's not the point.

the point with the public enemy reference that you are avoiding is summed up in this line

"Great people don't ask comedians actors and entertainers to lead. Great people produce what we need."

Which I believe is influenced by Dylan(see support material above).

Dylan has also stated he did things to alienate his audience because he didn't want to be the messiah for activists.  There's many better examples in dylans output which you could point to as alienating and deviating from social justice issues.  Picking on gotta serve somebody is petty and misguided.

It's not a matter of taste. It's a matter of being aware of cause and effect relationships and accepting that history did not stop in the 60's (I know that's a lot to ask of the babble community)

I'm not challenging you, because that is clearly what you hear, and that may indeed have been his intent (though I wouldn't be so sure). But the fact is it doesn't matter because, as I said, art speaks differently to each of us.

That is part of the reason why I think the artist isn't 100% important. Once the work is out of the bag he or she doesn't actually control it any more, and there is plenty of art that has been interpreted in a way differently than what the artist intended.

If I listen to that song and hear a direct message that we cannot avoid the choice to do something productive with our lives then that is what I hear, and it's not anyone's business to tell me otherwise. You hear what you hear and I respect that.

Has anyone thought about the importance of ambiguity and the 'fool' archetype in 'speak out art?

  In the spirit of St-Jean-Baptiste celebrations lets take a quick field trip to quebec.

The popular Felix leclerc has the fool in his book 'le fou de l'ile' say:

"Dans le monde qu'il fera... mais allez donc faire un monde ! N'importe,
mourir à une tâche irréalisable est préférable à vivre sans heurt comme un incliné."

"In the world he will make...oh, but to make a world! Doesn't matter, to die at a impossible task is better that to live without conflict like a couch potato" (Anyone more competent want to improve the translation?)

Though Felix often speaks clearly to a particular point of view the specifics are often omitted and the audience is left to apply the 'message' to their own situation. The distinction between that and an artistic voice speaking from an ambiguous point of view reflects an important politically laden decision on the part of the artist.

"whether as writer or composer, Félix Leclerc is a moralist.' In his book Félix Leclerc, Luc Bérimont writes: 'Leclerc's character is rich, complex, beyond grasp."

In the case of the 'le fou de l'ile' the 'thing that flies'  the fools raison d'etre is a symbolic object upon which the reader can replace with details relevant to their own life.  The message is the details are not so important as the idea that one should not give up in that which they believe. 

The interesting thing about him as an outspoken artist is that Multiple parks, roads and schools in Quebec that have been named in his honour. The Félix Awards, given to Quebec recording artists, are named after him. In 2000, the Government of Canada honored him with his image on a postage stamp. [58]). Does woody get that kind of formalized respect? Any other political canadian artists?

"Félix Leclerc espoused the ideals of French-Canadian patriotism even before the Quiet Revolution. From the mid-1950s to the end of the 1960s, several songs ('Tirelou,' 'Tu te lèveras tôt,' 'Les Rogations,' 'Le père,' 'Richesses,' etc.) predicted a radicalization of political positions." [59]

What do you think that says about the importance of having a culture [60] sympathetic to the ideals/politics being expressed?

"I'm alone on my team
The people round here aren't really violent
because they have meat under there teeth
and a full stomach hasn't any rage." [61]

It's also about those, like many babblers, who think, to paraphrase Socrates,  that the politically unexamined life is not worth living. I mean those who make it their business to try and convince the artist everywhere (even the one inside them) to take what Georgi Plekhanov called the "utilitarian" view and thereby nurture that joyful eagerness of taking part in social strife and taking "sides" in the issues of the day that matter.

It might be the subject chosen, the (new) form used to convey the artistic images, etc., or simply public statements and expressions of solidarity with the oppressed. Artists help to inspire, provide motivation, and so on. In any fundamental socio-political change an alternative artistic vision or visions is necessary to overcome/battle the artistic orthodoxy of the status quo.

ebodyknows #54, Thanks for that. And juxtapositioned next to Plekhanov and Woody.

On the Death of José Saramago

Lots of babblers will, no doubt, spit upon Saramago's Communist connections. However, no one, not even the most pathological anti-Communist, can deny that the great author was able to combine successfully his great artistic work with participation in the resistance to fascism in Portugal and the development of Portuguese democracy.

A great artist can, and should, speak out. And it's hard not to notice the contrast with Canadian author Margaret Atwood.

@ N.Beltov

With respect, I don't think the fact Atwood is offside from you on one issue changes the fact she is a politically outspoken and active person.

Atwood made an informed decision to not support a cultural boycott, not surprising given her political work with PEN around censorship. Whether one agrees with her decision or not it certainly doesn't erase the many issues (environmental, political, feminist and free-speech) on which she is politically active and does speak out and write.

I had intended to speak the question here; guess this is a good time. I think artists have the same obligation as the rest of us to make the world a better place and help others. And like the rest of us, they have the right to decide where they want to put their energy. If they want to create political art, speak out, give financial support, or do political work, great. But they don't have to do all of these things, and they don't have to do any of them if they don't want to. And they get to choose what they support, not anyone else. I am happy to see any artist speak out or create a work in support of a cause I support. But if that support isn't there it's not my place to barge onto someone else's stage and demand it just because that person has an audience I do not.

Weighing artists based on their politics can create some messy dilemmas. I asked already in another thread what I should do about U2, with whom I agree on their support for Africa, but disagree WRT copyright. And just as I wouldn't rush out and buy work I dislike just because of the artist's politics, I wouldn't automatically turn away from someone's work because his or her politics are different than mine, or because s/he won't buy my girl scout cookies.

If you support peaceful political struggle, and not recourse to violence, then the BDS campaign on Israel is critical. And the role of artists is quite important in this. It helps to isolate that barbarous, genocidal Israeli regime. Why? Because Israel banks on "useful idiots" who treat cultural and artistic matters as somehow "separate" from other aspects of social life.

Like you do.

Weighing artists on the basis of their politics, on the philosophical and social views that are reflected in their artistic activity, is precisely the RIGHT thing to do. What a work of art is about is what matters most of all.

Of couse, if someone turns that into the view that politics is ALL that matters, then their own attitude will narrow their appreciation of truly great art. Edited to add: Here is an example so you know that I am not talking out of my ass. Honoré de Balzac was a great French bourgeois writer. The bourgeois were his canvas. Realism was his great artistic innovation. Yet Balzac was a extreme conservative - a Royalist. If I ONLY used political views to evaluate an artist's work ... well then, I would never get to know the favourite writer of Fred Engels.

There are artists and there are artists. Lots of Canadian artists - take poets and musicians for example - languish in semi-poverty. It would be a kind of cruelty to expect such artists to make a bigger sacrifice than the ordinary Joe. This doesn't apply to the well off artists, like M Atwood,  who can take half a mill from the institutions of a racist regime and then blather about it afterwards like she's pure as driven snow. ha ha. We on the left did not fall off the turnip truck yesterday.

People who study poetry have been treated to, for years, the artistic and ideological views of a couple of fascists. I mean Ezra Pound and (incipient fascist) Thomas Stearns Eliot. I've always found this disgusting. There is no getting away from an artist's views. They're either hidden or not.

I put great artists, as Atwood is, on the same level of expectation as, say, a great scientist. I expect the latter not to do work that harms people.

And by helping the Israeli regime legitimize itself, there is another useful idiot who is helping to harm the Palestinians.

In the sense I recognize someone's right to make her own decision on an issue, even if I find it disappointing, and I can look at the rest of her work at face value and see her as an ally in other things, yes. That's how I see it.

And while we are trying artists for their fascist sympathies, let's not forget those who made art which is truly beautiful, like Salvador Dali, or whose situations were very complicated, like Wilhelm Furtwaengler or Hans Albers. You might know what you would do in their position. Me, I'd have to actually be in their shoes before I could say for sure.

(Edit)

Read your edit, N. Beltov. Yes, I am glad we agree on that. I won't be tossing my Rolling Stones albums either just because Mick voted for  Maggie Thatcher.

some of my fav. lyrics:

propagandhi: a peoples history of the world.

"At some turning point in history,

some fuckface recognized that knowledge tends to democratize cultures and societies
so the only thing to do was monopolize and confine it to priests,
clerics and elites (the rest resigned to serve),
cuz if the rabble heard the truth they'd organize against the power,
privilege and wealth hoarded by the few- for no one else.
And did it occur to you that it's almost exactly the same today?
And so if our schools won't teach us,
we'll have to teach ourselves to analyze and understand the systems of thought-control.
And share it with each other,
never sayed by brass rings or the threat of penalty.
I'll promise you- you promise me-
not to sell each other out to murderers, to thieves...
who've manufactured our delusion that you and me participate meaningfully
in the process of running our own lives.
Yeah, you can vote however the fuck you want,
but power still calls all the shots.
And believe it or not, even if (real) democracy broke loose,
power could/would just "make the economy scream" until we vote responsibly."

and of course, from the same record:

"Why don't we all strap bombs to our chests and ride our bikes to the next G-7 picnic?

It seems easier with every clock tick.
But whose will would that represent?
Mine? Yours? The rank-and-file's?
Or better yet: the Government's?
But I don't want to catalyze or synthesize the second Final Solution.
I don't want to be the Steve Smith of the Revolution.
Do you see the analogy?
We're the Oilers. The World Bank- the Flames!
And just 2 minutes remain in the 7th game of the best of 7 series!
Yeah, Jesus saves! Gretzky scores! The workers slave.
The rich get more. One wrong move and we risk the cup.
So play The Man, not the puck.
Why don't we plant a mechanic virus and erase the memory of the machines
that maintain this capitalist dynasty?
And yes, I recognize the irony that the very system I oppose affords me the luxury
of biting the hand that feeds.
But that's exactly why priviledged fucks like me should feel obliged to whine
and kick and scream- until everyone has everything they need."

That's interesting in a political context: " Play the man, not the puck." The puck is ideology, the superstructure. The man is the base, the foundation.

That's a keeper. (Even if it could be improved by being gender neutral. )

Can't believe I'm the first to drop this into the conversation, but here goes:

"Out of arguments with others we make rhetoric. Out of arguments with ourselves we make poetry." W B Yeats

I wonder if Yeats wasn't thinking of some argument about politics with Maud Gonne that he lost. Like, maybe an argument about artist involvement in social and political life?

I understand they eventually made some poetry together. heh.

I'm interested in moving beyond what I view as the odious actions of a well known Canadian author. Here is a quote from a self-described Marxist, of some kind, about "revolutionary" literature.

This too is worth discussing.

The Radical Novel Reconsidered.

Interviewer: "In your view, what's the role of literature in the struggle for revolutionary socialism in the United States and internationally?"

@ N. Beltov

Great quote, thanks.

I'm not familiar with Trotsky's statement, but I presume the "lagging behind/prophetic" dynamic actually refers to art which is either reactionary and sentimental or which calls for social change. After all, if we have art which is 400, 1000 and 2500 years old yet still speaks to modern politics and society, there isn't too much which we have never seen before. There is no need for actual prophecy.

And "prophecy" as he calls it is kind of irrelevant if it doesn't actually speak to what is going on right now. 1984 may seem like a futuristic novel, but everything in it - even the devolution of English into Newspeak - was something going on at the time Orwell wrote it.

But Wald is right. Politicians, power brokers and committees shouldn't even bother trying to get into business they know nothing about. There are a great many artists who manage to make powerful, and even complex political and social statements. But unless you know enough to speak to the people instead of lecturing them, forget it. Someone who only sees dogma and philosophy, and sacrifices art (like Ayn Rand or de Sade)  might interest scholars, but so far as the general public is concerned they produce work which is more talked about than read.

"It is naive and unhealthy to consider the men and things of history through the magnifying glass of fame, which lends them qualities beyond the reach of clever academic monkey tricks, although such qualities come automatically when man obeys the deep necessities of being -- when he elects to become an new man in a new age (the definition of any man, of any time)"

Was listening to Jules Feiffer on the radio yesterday talking about how he had to become famous in order to be able to speak out.    Picasso was mentioned for guernica but let's go to an earlier point in his career  Les Demoiselles d'Avignon which was considered 'revolutionary and controversial' painted in 1907 was not shown to the public till 1916.  We've talked a lot about the responsibility of the artist but we've only glanced over the responsibility of the audience.  It is imperitive that the culture supports the the kind of art which match their ideals.  This correlation is important both in the message of the art(implicit or explicit) and the modes by which the art is created.  Culture and it's production is too finely intertwined into the meaning of our everyday actions and activities for us to even consider comprimises. The whole worth of your identity depends upon it.  Just a brief walk around OCAD is enough to let you know there is no lack of aspiring politically engaged culture makers out there(I'm sure this is typic of art school around the country) yet browsing through the culture section of babble I can't help but be overwhelmed with post after post of mindless cultural drivel.

"Make way for magic! Make way for objective mysteries! Make way for love! Make way for necessities!"

Cultural artifacts are not enough. Though I agree they can be important for inspiration and sharing of ideas at some point you have to actually live the culture.  I think artists like Michael Franti [75] deserve a good deal of respect for putting what in the case of most popular artists would be nothing more than eclogue into reality [76].  Simple symbolic commitments like walking around with no shoes [77] have deep cultural significance.  I really do find it incredible that so many self styled leftist are willing to accept cultural heros handed down to them from capitalist corporations.  The cultural significance of someone like ani difranco refusing record deals from major labels is infinite. [78]

"The reign of hydra-headed fear has ended.
In the wild hope of effacing its memory, I enumerate:
fear of facing prejudice -- fear of public opinion -- of persecutions -- of general disapproval;
fear of being alone, without the God and the society which isolate you anyway;
fear of oneself -- of one's brother -- of poverty;fear of the established order -- or ridiculous justice;
fear of new relationships;
fear of the superrational;
fear of necessities;
fear of floodgates opening on one's faith in man -- on the society of the future;
fear of forces able to release transforming love;
blue fear -- red fear -- white fear; links in our shackles."

All the above quotes are from Le refus global [79] (I modified the translation on parts i thought were awkward.) Le refus global was an manifesto signed by a group of artist(mostly young) standing together.  In contrast to the Felix Leclerc example(who btw wrote 'barefoot in the dawn [80]') in a previous post Quebec society didn't accept their anti-religous message very easily, though it's influences are certainly recognized now.  For the artists this meant being uprooted, losing careers, giving children up for adoption, personal relationships breaking down. A documentary was made by a child of one of the artists 50 years later in which she interviews her shzitophrenic brother who was seperated from her at the age of 3 and whom currently lives in a shelter. She asks him to imagine what a better world would look like and he talks about living as a family. [81]

BTW Arlo guthrie and pete seger [82]were on the radio talking about protest music yesterday too in which some brief uncertainty is expressed about just who they have made to think with their music, the worth of it all and the artist and audience being all mixed up in it together in between responding to questions with pre-fabricated political statments we've all heard a million times.

"Condemned by doubt, immobile and timorous; I am like my people, undecisive and a dreamer; I speak to whoever will listen of my fictive country; The heart full of vertigo and consumed by fear. [83]"

We don't need the artists to speak out. [84]  We need to evolve towards a culture that doesn't require the artist to become these famous super-human mythological figures who's lives we admire.  We need to start living the culture we want to have! [85]

In the meantime, let artists speak out. Get out of the way if you can't lend a hand. Ha!

...

okay, let them hope the audience is a good one, without any fear.

"Fame is proof that people are gullible." [89]

An article by a woman who was Dylan's muse at a critical time both for American culture and music as well as Dylan's own career might be an interesting read ...

Suze Rotolo and Bob Dylan's Left Period

... and foreshadowed his later musical odes to religion one of which was rightly mocked, mercilessly, by the late John Lennon.

Yes, artists have a responcibility to reflect life honestly. At all times an artist is using their media to communicate.

What should they say in this communication with others? They could blather on in ignorance or they could be intelligent.

Reflect life honestly?  What if I prefer to just make stuff up?  Are you telling me I can't?  Oh, well then, best go scrap that screenplay...  Some dude says it's not true to life...

Get a grip.  We communicate, certainly.  But whether that communication takes the form of right, left, honest, dishonest, original, conventional, whatever - is up to the individual.  We do not have any such "responsibility". 

It's nice when artists reflect your own beliefs and politics, but they're under no obligation to you or anybody else to do so.  These arguments only make sense when artists agree with you.  What about the ones who don't?

Here's three quotes I'd like to post regarding this discussion:

Two from James Connolly

I. "No revolutionary movement is complete without its poetical expression. If such a movement has caught hold of the imagination of the masses, they will seek a vent in song for the aspirations, the fears and hopes, the loves and hatreds engendered by the struggle. Until the movement is marked by the joyous, defiant, singing of revolutionary songs, it lacks one of the most distinct marks of a popular revolutionary movement; it is a dogma of a few, and not the faith of the multitude".

II. “Just as it is true that a stream cannot rise above its source, so it is true that a national literature cannot rise above the moral level of the social conditions of the people from whom it derives its inspiration.”

And one from Brecht: “Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.”

Just wanted to put these out there for anybody's comments, because they seem to be appropriate to this discussion.

Could the mods delete the "normal 0 false false false" thing from my post?  I can't figure out how to remove it.

@ Ken Burch

You should be able to hit "edit" and go in and change it.

I did, several times, and it kept coming back.

Fixed @#74

Ken, if you paste text from Word or Explorer it has all sorts of junk tags that get imported along with it. To delete them, you have to view HTML code (click the HTML button in the babble comment box). Then you'll see all the garbage Microsoft puts on its clipboard excerpts, frustrating to an infinite degree.

Nice set of quotes Ken.  It should be obvious from the sentiments I've been trying to express that I relate most to the 2nd quote. 

I'd change the metaphor a bit though. To me the culture is like the ecosystem and and piece of art is but a fish in a river.  Any artists work is fed, nourished and shaped by its context.  Though an artist work may speak against the current of his or her culture they still have to acknoledge the realities surrounding them.

If true cultural revolutions exist they are rare.  You can with great force cause a river to change directions but usually the river still wants to maintain it's old behaviour.  Even the catholic church had to work with pagan traditions to get their message across.

Does it make any sense for me to protest football thread?

I mean as far as issues go it's small potatoes, is really worth getting banned over?  On the other hand I've always been a person of principle [100](I even eat Jerusalem artichokes [78].).  Weather or not my point of view is right I do feel strongly about it, but my life would probably be easier if I just confined myself to this thread and babbled on about the intricacies of bob dylans career.  There certainly isn't a culture that will support the kind of culture my art is trying to hammer out...at least I could make some friends and laugh a little more [49] if I accepted that.

Are you an artist speaking out against Football?

I'm an artist speaking out against the musique savant.

Would you like to elaborate on your objections to others discussing Football on Babble?

I've outlined my stance against the musique savant in the various football threads starting with 'the greatest show on earth' thread.

This seems to have been your first foray into the thread you mention above:

so why are ya'll so into a bunch of guys running around a field(that's been stripped of all flowers and everything else i consider interesting about fields) and kicking a petro-chemical product?

 ETA: Sorry that was your second. I'll look at your first after the penalty kicks.

ETAA: Okay so I read your opposition to the World Cup. What I'd like to know is what is your opposition to us discussing the World Cup?

"Homelessness and Poverty require innovative response.

Every person carries stories, perspectives and abilities that can effect personal and social change. [107]

All people are creative and need the chance to tell or retell stories in whatever way we want to tell or retell them. We are all a part of making history regardless of what our life situations indicate.... [107]

....It’s easier to make decisions when your imagination is awake. Working in the arts increases self-esteem, strengthens resilience and invigorates a desire to learn more. [107]

The arts offer neutral and accessible territory that breaks down barriers and gets us to work together. A sense of voice in community elicits civic participation and reduces isolation." [107]

This is just one example of so many where people are working hard to create a culture created by and for the people. 

It's forkin' hard to be culture makers that want to create a culture outside of the dominate culture.  The dominate culture that isolates, feeds us with fear, fills us with ridiculous unpractical dreams of gluttonous glamour and teaches us to accept feeding our soul with mass produced/low nutritional value junk.

'The funny thing about many calls to be more tolerant: the onus so often falls on the marginalized to tolerate what they have to tolerate every day in the oppressive context of the dominating culture. It becomes particularly rich when it is people trying to convince us they are allies who demand that we take it, because, well, they *mean* it differently than the status quo does. And we should learn to tell the difference. And we shouldn't be so ... petty. [108]

How is this progressive? Why is it so hard to simply hear: "That term alienates me. It makes me feel bad. It puts me down. It pushes me away. It is silencing. Maybe you don't know it, but that is the effect. Could you stop, if you truly want to have me participate here? If you want me to be comfortable?" [108]'

It forkin' hurts to see the artists stressed and struggling around me who try soo hard, sacrifice their time, money and lives resisting the pressure to market themselves as magical superheros for a malnourished culture to idolize.

If you depend on the dominate culture as a crutch to get you through whatever you need to get through that's fine.  However, you should not have any right to babble on about repressive dominate culture norms in a way that excludes critical discussion if you want me to take this forum seriously.

Our politics are petty if we can't start incorporating them into the culture of our everyday lives.

I actually didn't mind ebodyknow's contributions to the football threads. He did limit himself to one, maybe two situationalist-type responses to each World Cup thread, and the rest of us could carry on unhindered in our discussion about patriotic millionaires kicking around a petroleum product in a third-world continent under the jurisdiction of trademarked corporations. It's okay to point out the irony every now and then, lest we go blind.

Hi Timebandit,

I can understand your reaction; you might not have guessed it but I used to think of myself as a bit of an artist too but now resigned myself to being a mere painter and artisan.   So I too am wary about the expectation that 'artists' should somehow be more 'transcendant' than others or reflect only conventional mores and morality. 

That said if some great talent makes another "Triumph of Will" or "Birth of a Nation" then I don't think they deserve anymore immunity from public criticism than any other propogandist.  Maybe less if they have an loyal following or high social profile.  I've thought about this a fair bit and decided that for me the dividing line is that anyone should be allowed to express themselves however they see fit about whatever they choose, but others don't have to feel obligated to buy it or even say nice things about them based on past reputation.  Leni Reifenstahl was a true cinematic genius (along with her camera men) who influenced the genre for generations, but her justification that she only saw it as another working opportunity should also be seen in context of what political movement she helped spawn and the immitators that followed.

To take it further, art historians and universities should be allowed (and indeed encouraged) to expose students to any great or influential works, regardless of their affect on the society of the day, and they should be based on the social norms of their own day, but any decent teacher should also make students aware of the other side of it toi, from more current experience.  I hope that explains my position a bit better.

Good points Erik.

another collection of quotes.

"I don't want to ever have to remind you again that in a mass marketing culture a revolutionary song is any song you choose to sing yourself." [112]

"Now somebody, anybody, everybody Scream! [113]"

"There's bread and cheese upon the shelf
uhhuhh...
Bread and cheese upon the shelf
uh (D7) huhh...
(G) Bread and cheese upon the shelf
If you (C) want anymore you can sing it for yourself
uh (G) huhh, uh (D7) huhh, uh (G) huhh... [114]"
(dylan also sang this on the good as I've been to you alblum)

[115]

New Brunswick is jeopardizing its ability to tell its own stories by denying its young artists access to more funding, according to one of the province's best-known authors.

David Adams Richards, who has twice won the Governor General's Literary Award and is a co-winner of the Giller Prize, writes in an essay for CBC News that it is imperative for the New Brunswick government to find a way to support its writers and artists.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/nbvotes2010/story/2010/08/31/nbvotes-election-c...

That's a natural choice for a right-wing "free market" government, whether Tory or "Liberal".

If people are allowed to tell their stories, they get the chance to demonstrate that their lives have dignity, meaning and value.  This makes it harder for the political-industrial complex to just cast them aside as "deadwood", because the people the PIC labels as deadwood are shown to be growing trees with deep roots instead.  Human clearcutting becomes much more difficult, if not impossible. 

Can't have THAT if you believe in "the magic of the market". 

As someone who creates content, written and media, in "the regions", I have to say that retaining arts funding is a constant, uphill battle.  It was ever thus, whether we had an NDP gov't or a conservative one here in SK.  I spent a decade on the board of an artist-run co-op and it was all advocacy all the time.

I'm not against commercially viable art - in fact, if it's really well done most of the time the setting isn't actually that important.  If you've been writing 30 years and it only speaks to people in your immediate vicinity, you're doing it wrong.  But it's incredibly important that we provide funding to give the next generation the experience to develop and refine their craft so that their voices can be heard.

While I can appreciate artist that transcend barriers of different sorts could you explain why art must ultimately speak to a broad audience?  I can only assume your working definition of art is much more specific and that you see a much more focused purpose to an art practice than I am able to conceive of.  I'm often happy to be engaging in a form of personal entertainment that obfuscates my dependence on entertainment provided by the capitalist system or creates a sense of community amongst the alienated. 

Yes, it's great to be able to relate and share your culture with a broad group of strangers.  However, I'm bored of the culture of the second hand, the culture of referencing other cultures without experiencing them first hand.  I like more people to have a sense of culture as something they live rather than something they attend constantly playing the part of the 4th wall.  While I might like to have some info about SK not all the artists living there need to be a spokesperson for SK for them to be worthwhile as an artist.....if there wasn't culture makers there working to create a sense of an sk identity I'm not sure the spokesperson artist would have much interesting to say.

The work of most of the towering figures in European culture(to use one example)usually didn't speak to much of anyone during their lifetimes,  Many if not most of them died in poverty.  Those who had patrons were often forced by those patrons to spend most of their creative lives turning out flattering, if meaningless, dreck in honor of the bloated egos of those patrons, squeezing in the works we remember them by in their off-hours.

And to this day, any creative work that actually dares to create will always be outsold by things like romance novels, action movies, "pop" music and "I Cn Haz Cheezburger" posters.

If you are writing to be popular, it goes without saying that you won't be creating important work, since most work that is heavily sold is bland decoration(in visual art) schmaltz or action-driven(theatre and movies) or mindless sentimental nothingness("chick lit" and other "popular" forms of writing).

This isn't because most of the human race is shallow.  It's because most of those who have enough disposable income to buy books, theatre or movie tickets, or stuff to put on the walls are mainly driven by a desire not to think or be challenged.  The false "popularity" of things these people purchase is always the enemy of genuine creativity.  If you try for "accessibility" for these people, you inevitably end up with emptiness. 

You simply CAN'T create anything meaningful and have it be your objective to have your creation "sell". 

Art of any kind is essentially a communication. If your themes and modes of expression are so narrow that it does not translate to a broader audience, in my view, you should look at why that is. Perhaps the fault is not with the audience. It might be that, in the final analysis, you are okay with that, but it's rare that any artist aims for a very limited audience.

I think there's an enormous difference between creating something to entertain oneself and being a working artist. You're thinking more along the lines of a dabbler, someone who paints or writes as an outlet, but not as a vocation. I'm curious, though, how do you create a community by creating something that is limited? Should it not speak to others?

One could argue that there are universal themes that transcend cultures. Is it boring to read Garcia Marquez because I haven't experienced his culture firsthand? Or is there something of greater value that I can draw from his work? What about seeing a Van Gogh? I can't experience 19th C. Arles, does that make his work strictly second hand and of less value? Or could one argue that his work transcends cultures and communicates something beyond the immediate?

I rather think I would.

Is that what we do? I disagree. We experience our own cultures daily. So what? Does that mean your daily experience limits what you have to share to only those in your vicinity?

I'm not sure where you got this from - it certainly wasn't implicit in anything I wrote. I'm not sure what a "spokesperson artist" is supposed to be, or if they actually exist. I rather think not. Anyone who makes art here is contributing to the sense of local identity. It's not about "information about Saskatchewan", you can get that off the tourism websites. That's not the job or the aim of artists.

This brings to mind a novel, The Shipping News, by Annie Proulx, which was adapted for screen - Lasse Halstrom directed it. Anyway, it's set in Newfoundland. I haven't directly experienced Newfoundland's culture, but that didn't mean that the story, its transcendent themes of loneliness and belonging, of becoming who we need to be and so forth couldn't come through that lens and speak to someone who is completely landlocked.

I think my point here would be that if you don't have anything interesting to say beyond a very limited few in your immediate vicinity, then the truth is that you don't have anything interesting to say at all.

Is the Mona Lisa dreck? How about the Sistine Chapel?

I'm sorry, but this is nothing more than a high-handed romanticization of the creative process. It's only true art if it isn't for money. Bullshit. The mark of a true artist is producing quality work regardless whether one's motivation is intrinsic or extrinsic. If it weren't for those patrons, the world would be a much more barren place. Last time I checked, artists need to eat.

An action movie can't be art? Says who? If music is popular, it must be trash?

Snobbery. Just because it doesn't speak to you and your particular segment of audience doesn't mean it has no value.

Oh, well, we're ever so glad you're benevolent enough to not actually call everybody who doesn't share your enlightened view "shallow". Good grief.

You know what? Stephen Frears makes artful films. They are gorgeous, well-written, well shot and well performed. They're also commercial.

Get over your own bloated ego.

Da Vinci didn't paint the Mona Lisa in the hopes that it would make him rich(and it didn't-no money was made off the painting until somebody sold it to the Louvre centuries later).   That example totally fails to support your point.  So does the Cistene Chapel-Michaelangelo wasn't trying to be the "Thomas Kinkeade-Painter of Light" of the Renaissance.  He just had to satisfy a couple of cardinals-and they'd likely have signed off on whatever he came up with.  So that doesn't work for the point you were trying to make it work with either. 

An action movie CAN be art.  The Swedish film version of "The Girl With A Dragon Tattoo" is art.   It goes without saying that the big-budget American version can't be, because, unlike the Swedish version, it will be solely about "what will sell".  This is why there was no creativity, no originality, and no emotional or intellectual truth whatsoever in any Angelina Jolie action film ever made. 

Music, film, visual art that HAPPENS to be popular can be creative.   But things created with the intent of being "marketable" can't be.   Putting popularity FIRST always puts the product in a creativity-free zones. 

It's great when something can speak to a wide audience.  But if you're making that something with the specific intent of reaching an wide audience for the sake of reaching a wide audience, it's almost always not going to be much above mediocre.  The Publication/Production/Distribution-Industrial Complex won't allow it to be. 

It's why George Clooney couldn't be as good in "Ocean's Eleven" as he was in "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" or when he directed "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind".  It's why all of Harold Robbins'  dirty-old-rich-white-man potboilers were creative failures compared to "A Stone for Danny Fisher".  It's why none of the playwrights whose plays drew bigger audiences than Shakespeare's during his lifetime ever survived to be performed by later audiences.  It's why Salieri hated Mozart, even though Salieri was much more "commercial" than Lil' Wolfie back in the day.

The Beatles only grew creatively when they STOPPED focusing exclusively on trying to crack the Top 40.  They were popular, but they grew as artists only when they were willing to say "We don't care if the teeny-boppers like this...it's what WE want to do".  In taking this approach, they used the popularity they happened already to have to push the boundaries of music and to expand the consciousness of their audience.  It goes without saying that if they'd kept putting "having a hit" first, they would never have moved beyond the "Hard Day's Night" level.   They'd have been stuck being a real-life version of The Monkees.  And this wouldn't even have kept getting them hit singles.  The same applied to Madonna, or to any other popular artist.  Look at how pathetic the Rolling Stones have made themselves by almost always putting popularity first.   Bob Marley had a huge audience, but only because he didn't put "hits" above making music based on the truth of his life and his convictions.  To see what happened to reggae after popularity became more important than creativity, look at "dancehall"-a form with no creative or social significance whatsoever and a form that has no chance of liberating anyone or changing anything.   A form, in short, that will be forgotten within a decade.

And Annie Proulx wrote "The Shipping News" out of a desire to speak a creative truth.  She was NOT writing with the objective of getting a best-seller.  And this can obviously also be said of her original version of "Brokeback Mountain".  What she did was to get a lot of people to read a book that the publishing industry would never have predicted they'd read.  And she did this by putting truth and creativity BEFORE popularity.  "Market values" types can't handle that, because it proves that you don't have to push for the lowest common denominator to ACHIEVE popularity.  Another example of Dr. Seuss.  He just tried to create children's books that were different than the usual dreck.  This is why Dr. Seuss's children books still matter and the "Dick and Jane" books, or the Berenstain Bears, don't, in terms of creativity.

Creativity can be popular, but it has to refuse to care about popularity.  You can't do anything meaningful it you, as an artist are thinking "what does the audience WANT to see/hear/read".  You have to put truth before popularity.  Otherwise, you end up self-editing and self-censoring whatever you're doing to the point that it ceases to have any validity.  And this is compounded by publishers, producers, and executives who always want whatever they allow to be put out under their name to be diluted beyond recognition.  Sometimes, creative truth does get released by the corporate creative machine...but always in spite of market values and because the executives weren't looking to make sure the truth and originality were surgically removed.

Oh, and dude, I don't claim to be a major artist myself, so this wasn't about MY ego.  Might I ask why I merited a personal attack when I made no such attack on you?

And are you, by any chance, David Mamet posting under a pseudonym?  That's a guy whose take on culture is right-wing too.   You tipped your hand with your contemptuous remarks about the creative process.

And if every artist that wasn't immediately popular was forced to stop creating(which appears to be your objective)would you really want to see the shit that would be left?  Would you really want no music other than Lady Gaga?  No movies other than action films?  No books other than Bridget Fucking Jones?   You seem to be really eager to silence and crush a lot of artists.  Why is that?  Why do you think popularity is more important than anything else?  And how can you think that work created with the primary intent of being popular can still HAVE any truth to it?  That would've given us Sixties music that featured ONLY The Supremes, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, and Jan and Dean.  It would've meant the only films produced in the Seventies would've been the Star Wars Films and ET.  It would've meant no visual art at all in the Eighties and Nineties.  And we'd never have heard of Mozart OR Bach, since neither of them were commercially viable by any measures in their day.   

Sorry, but it looks like what you want is for all artists to reduce themselves to being hacks, as market values force reduce everything else to mediocrity and "flash".

The artist HAS to be free to be ahead of the audience, or else art cannot grow, and life cannot grow.  It's only through experimentation and risk, both of which are always crushed by the popularity machine, that art can tell the truth.  Everything that is comfortable is a creative lie.

I think you're right, Ken. Musicians today tend to be kids because their stuff appeals to other kids. Kids are who the big labels want to tap into for their allowance money and burger wages. It's all about who has disposable income to fritter away on their kiddie crap-rap. Everyone else is too skint to buy kiddie rap and kiddie noise and that infernal chainsaw music that passes for rock or whatever they're calling it nowadays. Jeez the new music stinks. We need some real musicians in addition to a real monetary system designed with people in mind.

Deep. I tend to agree with Malcom Gladwell, and Marx, and Weber, and Ken Burch. It's all about life chances. I think there are creative artists who ponder their creation and are inspired by something or some event in their lives. And then there are experimental artists. Apparently today's artists are more the experimental kind. They tend to be the ones who meander down dark alleys and narrow paths trying this and that before producing something that appeals to someone somewhere. I think people were in the mood for music in the 20's, 40's, 50's, 60s, and 70s. I even liked some of the 80s tunes and damn few nineties works. But that's just me.

The saddest thing about Timebandit's ultraconservative "popularity is the only true measure of success" dictum is that he, unlike me and you, Fidel, is the true elitist.  Timebandit assumes the audience can't respond positively to challenges, can't follow the artist

as she or he takes risks and tries to find new depths in the work.   To someone like the Timester, "history is over" among ordinary people, and "they want what they want" and will never move on from that.  This attitude will always be the enemy of art, and the enemy of the audiences for art.

Ya I detected hints of Bach and Wagner in the tone that reply to you. It almost made me feel like invading Poland, or something. I dunno.

@ Ken Burch

@ Fidel

Come on, you guys. "ultraconservative"? Of course there are some artists who push the envelope more than others, and an artist has to follow his or her vision, but for most (and ultimately for all) if art doesn't resonate with the people then it doesn't go anywhere.

And if that means Dickens has to cut his books into article-sized serials, or Warhol has to draw shoes to earn a buck or if John Lennon has to make sure his songs are short enough for airplay then that's how it is. For the most part artistic breakthroughs happen, but usually they happen whle artists are doing what they do to let people know about their art and sustain themselves financially by doing what they love.

Sorry, money is not a dirty word unless an artist would rather spend time doing something else to earn it rather than creating art. And for that matter, networking and schmoozing aren't dirty words either. The only artists who can afford to ignore that are those who are either so cloistered in their own work that they don't care, or those who don't have to because they have a patron or the modern equivalent. But most of the artists I know are quite happy to find a receptive and supportive audience.

And another thought...

The conservatives and others who like to make cuts to the arts get a lot of mileage out of the "elitist snobs' image of artists. What was it Harper said about awards banquets and grants?

The reality is that the arts is one of the strongest sectors of the economy, and one which dollar-for-dollar returns a far better investment on public funding than money thrown at things like mining, manufacturing and other sectors that most people think of as "real" economic engines. The arts are popular; they are driven by passion, but also by money, and they generate a lot of it too.

Sure a lot of it is bread and circuses, but whose business is that of ours? I turn my nose up at the Craven Country Jamboree just like a lot of people. I can't abide most opera either, but everyone has a right to listen and watch what they want. Without a vibrant arts sector supported by popular art you aren't going to have venues, galleries, studios and theatres that can afford to take the risk and support groundbreaking work. It is all part of the same thing.

I think we're blowing timebandits statement out of proportion here...I do believe he said speaking to people outside your immediate vicinity after 30 years...that still doesn't require some achieve pop star status to be an artist. After all he was seemingly willing to use Van Gogh as artist worth looking at. I actually think he probably agrees with your last post as all he ever seemed to be trying to say is that an artist should have something interesting to say.

Does Van Gogh really have something that interesting to say?  Ya there are some nice colours, the expressive curvy and wavy lines were a welcome change and I'm sure lot's of us can relate in some way to his angst ills of modern society point of view but he was also a bit of an obsessive mess of a person.  While that's interesting I'm don't believe it's any more interesting than what my next door neighbours 1yr old son produces.  However, he did leave behind all the letters which gave academics lots of fuel and fits nicely into the story of art history they wrote.

I once asked someone studying music in Ghana why they chose Ghana, the answer I got was that lots of other academics had already written about music in Ghana...apparently it's preferred to study something that has already been studied so you can make references?

Well I was excited about the 'immediate vicinity' part of your comment.  I think communicating through artistic endeavours within a small community amongst people you know is of tremendous value in and of itself but I want to go farther and say if people want to make art just for themselves that should not be discounted either.

Maybe there are universal themes.  What makes art interesting for me is expressing things in the language of a particular culture.  Otherwise it's just the same old story we've heard before.  It might be the language of 1 or the language of a province or a country. In order to understand it for what the artist intended you have to understand something about the context of it's creation.  In the case of written work you might even have to learn a new written language or when it's the same language the subtle nuances the creator ascribes to words.  In the case of mass produced art the language is that of mass culture.  A spokesperson artist loosely defined would be someone who create art about one culture in the language of another culture.

There is not a work of art that has been created who's beauty can be agreed upon by all people.  For me it will always be the dabblers I find interesting and particularly those who do many things but still want to share a moment of creativity and start a dialouge with me every now and again rather than always asking me to go look at someone elses culture.  I don't think we need to share that with anyone else and I don't think anyone can appreciate it the same way by merely observing it because the themes include celebrating our own creative potential and time spent together. [130]

she. I believe Timebandit is a woman.

oops, i didn't check.

That's a complete misreading of everything I've said.  Actually, it's more an invention.  You're building a straw man.

I'll respond with more substance later - just taking a short break from doing paid creative work - but essentially I would like to state that I am extremely offended by being called "ultraconservative".  An ultraconservative does not spend 10 years being a publicly outspoken advocate for arts funding, or for representing the concerns and interests of a non-profit artist-run centre - I point this out because it was mentioned earlier in the thread.  You've made a baseles and petty accusation, and I'd like a retraction, please.

Yes.  But the trope that art for money isn't art is also the sour-grapes tune of the failed wannabe who will never rise above amateur hour.

Jebus.

If everyone can dial back the personal attacks that would be marvy.

No oblique references to babblers as Nazis. No taunting others for their taste in "art".

This thread is adrift and it's also over 100 posts. Stick a fork in it, it's done.

Closing.