What are the reasons we create our art?
Is it the creative process itself? Would we be satisfied if we created and walked away, if no one ever saw the art? Last summer I created a rock sculpture somewhere in the mountains of Lake County, stacked them into a mini-monument; certainly by now they've fallen, been scattered by winds or aninals, The process of creating was still satisfying. Is it art if no one sees it?
Or do we need the reactions... the praise, shock, whatever... of others? Must we show, get feedback, to be fulfilled?
Or must we profit from our "art" ???
I don't know the answer yet. Maybe there are many answers, varying with the questioner, with the time, with the place.
It comes up because of a question from another, on what to do about unauthorized non-commercial web use... if anything.
Must we protect our "property" ? (such a western concept, property).
Or is it better to maximize the number of viewers, sometimes with the unsolicited "help" of others?
Does it matter?
1 comment:
these are great questions, and i've been pondering many similar things as i prepare for the now-annual trip to burning man this year, but not this particular aspect. as i am not really an artist, i haven't thought about this in a first person context, but i guess i've wondered around this question for a really long time when seeing other people get consumed by their art. thx for putting it out there.
you might really enjoy this interview with Robert Rauschenberg in the current issue of Interview magazine, wherein he says:
PT: Are opportunities here for new artists?
RR:If they don’t fall asleep with success, I don’t see any reason things couldn’t be as exciting as, say, the ’50s or ’60s were for American artists. But I think it’s almost to a fault that there are so many galleries. My friend Brice Marden was teaching at the School of Visual Arts, and on the first day he noticed that the only curiosity young artists expressed was to say, "Tell me how to get a gallery” and "Tell me how to get a loft.” So he said, "If you want that . . . I’ll tell you how to find a loft. But don’t come back to school tomorrow if that’s what you want.” I think the focus on these things is premature, and it’s eclipsed the curiosity about—and joy of—making artworks."
http://www.interviewmagazine.com/
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