art and audience

(revised: 10-25-08)

I’d like to talk about two important people in the artistic process: the artist
and the audience–and the special relationship that joins them. In the ideal
world, there is a beautiful harmony between these agents: we can glimpse at
what this harmony is like by thinking about the extreme cases when this
relationship breaks down. When an artist creates a work that does not have
an intended audience, then it is a simple exercise in intellectual masturbation
–a selfish act that goes no further than some release that the artist feels.
Of course many artists produce works like this because they feel like they
need to say something to themselves–something deeply personal; something
that THEY would not consider to be “works of art”, unless we allow art to
include things that are just meant for “me”.

In the other extreme, you have art that that is meant for the mass audience.
I think it was my mistake in the past to think of art as ALWAYS meant for an
audience–TRUE: the artists wants his work to be appreciated–but what does
that mean exactly? Again, in the extreme case, it is where EVERYONE can
appreciate his work–most likely without work–which is fine if our measure
is a simple “head count” of who “gets it”. BUT what I’ve realized is that a work
like that must be pretty daft AND uninteresting–it must be something so
simple and unchallenging that SUCH a work would hardly fit our definition of
GOOD art. In these cases, what comes to mind instead is “pop” art–art for the
masses–but like pop songs, or pop-anything, there is a negative connotation–
and one that I think is warranted: IF the work of art is simple brain-candy, then
what TRUE purpose did it serve.

What I am assuming, of course, is that ART challenges its viewers. Why is a
Britney Spears song so much more enjoyable (and therefore, less artistic–by
my measures), than a song by John Coltrane? (I choose this stark contrast to
make the points of relief that much easier to perceive) There it is:
Everything in a Britney spears song is laid out for you in 4/4 time–with a
simple bridge and a catchy melody to boot. The ideas are simple enough: I love
you–and always will, blah blah. And indeed, WE ALL “GET IT”–this isn’t
rocket science!! And although we don’t admit it, we also enjoy it–we enjoy
the brain candy–that is if we’re in the mood for brain-candy. But when we’re
in the mood for more substance–for something to EXPLAIN why we are
inexplicably drawn to love this person for all time, how we hurt ourselves
in doing so, etc. etc., the britney spears, for me–at least, has fallen
short–like relying on cotton candy and sugardaddies for a full meal.

For that we have to turn to coltrane: who on our first hearing is jarring to
the ears–quite hard to understand. That confrontation–that “WHAAAAA” that
rankles in our head as these exultations of pain are belted out from a
saxophone that is too weak to contain them, THAT misundertanding IS the start
of the artistic process. So you want to know about “love” on a deeper level–
MR. Coltrain asks–well, look at this essay that i’ve written on the subject.

And as we read this cryptic exposition created by a person who has clearly
delved DEEPER than us, we are confused: what is he talking about?? Its over
my head? I don’t “get it”?–these are the reactions. If Mr. Coltrane has laid
down the gauntlet and says: “THIS IS a Love Supreme!”–is it Mr. Coltrane’s
fault that we, as the pedestrian in these affairs are caught starring blankly
into its headlights?

So the HEART of the matter is APPRECIATION. And I want to spend the rest of
this entry talking about how the audience appreciates artwork. Why does the
artist need an audience at all? Should an artist ever stoop to “pedestrian”
terms to communicate these ideas to the mass audience? What is the role of the
art critic in all of this? How does one strike that perfect harmony between
artist and audience?–what does that even look like?

I’ve already answered the first question of why the artist needs an audience:
as I’ve said above, unless the artist INTENDS and is content with artistic
masturbation, then he needs an audience. Most artists will want to tap into
the cultural fabric and produce agents of change–artworks that raise the
awareness of the broader audience: in a prophetic voice, “Stop! this is fucked
up–you must CHANGE!” That is the fundamental message that the artist
is conveying. And how would he enable this change if no-one is meant to
receive it?

The second problem is harder. In fact its what I’ve been struggling with these
past couple days: Is the message lost by transposing it into pedestrian terms.
Back to the example of “Love supreme” b/c its so accessible and rich. Could
Coltrane have expressed the ideas of “Love Supreme” in 4/4 time w/ a pop-y
melody so that we can appreciate it immediately?? VERY unlikely. There
are several reasons for this: 1. Lets suppose that up to the point before
Coltrane releases “Love supreme”, that he’s the only artist to understand
what that type of love is–in other words, he’s understand love at the deepest
level–deeper than any other person alive. And now it is his job to express
these new and deeper realms to a broader audience. Well, just as Einstein
was the only person to discover Relativity–and only about a handful of people
were able to appreciate his work when it was first published, should we expect
it to be any different with an artistic endeavor??!! Do we expect young
Einstein to write a pop-up book explaining relativity to us in nice graphical
and “fun” terms? Do we expect coltrane to “translate” Love supreme into a
“hit”?? OF COURSE NOT!!!!

And just as it takes us many years of education even to understand the beauty
of Relativity–shouldn’t it also take us time to understand Love supreme? MORE
to the point: why do we EXPECT an instant gratification in ART–when did we
buy into that lie that “good” art is “understandable” art??!! RATHER–it is
GOOD art, like good science, which CHALLENGES US: A. it calls us to introspect-
to learn the necessary concepts (e.g. math/jazz theory) to understand the
LANGUAGE of expression. It calls us to BE MORE: to THINK…to CHANGE our
way of seeing things…etc etc. And you can’t ask people to CHANGE their
way of thinking by expressing things in pedestrian language!

Of course, I am too heavy handed with my words: the work doesn’t “call” anyone
to do anything: Love supreme could have sat there and gone unnoticed–just as
the theory of relativity could have just sat in some unknown journal.
It is still the case that MANY people do not understand these two artworks.
That is b/c, and this is more a commentary on the sad state of our education,
–it is b/c there is no one to go around to each person in the world and
telling him: “hey did you hear Coltrane’s Love supreme!–awesome stuff…go
listen to it!” — So people are never introduced to the great works. Even if
they were introduced to them, they wouldn’t understand it–would the average
person have the mathematical training to understand Einstein’s 1905 paper!?

So that is largely a matter of education: IF the majority of our society cannot
understand the GREAT works of our ARTISTIC and SCIENTIFIC heritage, then that
is the fault of our education system. I have nothing more to say here.

But though the education system may fail us, that vacuum is still something
that we can’t ignore. WE must constantly call people to fill that gap within
their own lives: to strive for more and more understanding–to make them
better appreciators of our cultural legacy: to make them MORE human–to help
them see the light that we all see. I admit that ADULTHOOD is not the best
time for conceptual change: people, in their inertial malaise are NOT compelled
to change they way they think unless their lives are directly threatened–and
history has shown this over and over again–the concepts of democracy and
the a French Revolution would have fallen hollow were it not for starvation
to compel THE change!

But the job of the “art critic” or the “science magazine editor” etc. is to
act as the adult educator: to take on that embarrassing job of making
popup-books and explain the deep concept in a “fun” and engaging way–not to
explain the beauty in its fullness, perhaps, but to encourage more exploration
–which of course, is unlikely to come. But that is the thankless task that
art critics SHOULD REALLY perceive themselves. So if there is a gap between
1. Producers/CREATORS and 2. the mass audience, then art critics/reporters/
aka DIGESTERS/”Primary consumers” are meant to step into that vacuum–and
compel the change–to educate.

Brief digression: Rothko HATED critics. He thought that they were useless–or
worse, interfering. And I want to write his position b/c I think I agree
with it: Art, he says, is a relationship between the artist, the artwork, and
the viewer who is READY to appreciate the art. For a person who was usually
taciturn, the best compliment that he gave was to call you a “human being”–and
it is no doubt that when he conceptualizes this ideal “viewer” that he thinks
of him as another human being that thinks as deeply as him–leaving out the
vast majority of people out there. Its elitist–but I like it: its not the
artist’s job to stoop down and make things pedestrian (as we discussed exhaust-
ively above)–his job is to go to the frontiers and to report back discoveries.
IF a person cannot appreciate his discoveries, then THAT person must be
educated–he must be challenged to change how he looks at the world–not
Mr. Rothko, Mr. Einstein, or Mr. Coltrane. THEY see the truth, and want us
to see the truth too–for ourselves. If rothko tried to explain it in his
own words (just as if einstein tried to explicate the theory of relativity
for us)–he would use English in a way that would ultimately be
un-understandable: WE simply don’t have the mental concepts to dive deep with
them.

Ok enough about that. There is one final case: there is a case of the
“perfect storm”–where an artistic idea is DEEP–meaning that it truly requires
us to change our perspectives; AND the mass audience is PRIMED for this
change in perspective: The result is a swell of mass change that usually leads
to social revolutions. The best examples of this is Uncle Tom’s cabin–which
was the perfect story to hit an audience that was primed for a rallying point
for. There are many more, but that one comes immediately to mind. It was
something about that story that “clicked” in the anti-slavery north: maybe it
was the detailed depiction of human cruelty, maybe it was something more.

But was uncle Tom’s cabin “challenging” to its audience? Certainly not: they
understood its content–it had mass appeal. This mass audience had been
“primed”–meaning the hard ground work had been laid for years by other
abolitionists. To borrow that hackneyed term, the book simply put the movement
past its tipping point. It is very unlikely for a work to surpass the
tipping point WITHOUT years and years of ground work and massaging! (unless of
course it is a matter of life and death–as in the french revolution)

So here are the conclusions:
1. Why should an artist concern himself with mass audiences? Well, he
shouldn’t unless he wants to provoke mass change–which is the underlying
ambition of most bodies of art.
2. The mass audience’s ability to appreciate work from the “frontier” is a
function of education. The distance between the average viewer and the latest
work is an indicator of how “enlightened” as a society we are: imagine a
society that simply understand relativity, rothkos and coltrane!–That society
gets me excited just thinking about it! But its purely fictional.
3. The art should never be dumbed down; instead the audience should be
enlightened and challenged. More specifically: there is a lie here that I
discovered: the lie is that we EXPECT good art to be accessible to the broader
audience immediately: it is not a good song unless it has broad appeal etc.
etc. That is bullshit! Is relativity less of a breakthrough b/c only a hand-
ful of people understood it when it first came out? Is the proof on Fermat’s
last theorem less valuable b/c only a few people, through the course of ALL
TIME, will only understand it??!
4. Crtics must play the role of adult-educators…that’s all. They are most
necessary when our education system fails us–as in our current time.
5. Finally, IF there is a “perfect storm” scenario, then it is necessarily
preceded by LOTS of groundwork to get the broader audience PRIMED. Without the
priming, “perfect storm” scenarios would be like scientific / artistic /
social revolutions in a vacuum–something which I believe history has shown
never to occur.

~ by lentaing on August 5, 2007.