GG: creator

["Joseph Podlesnik" <veronese@jerseycape.com>]

Catherine: 

You certainly opened up a teasing, yet well-rounded, set of questions on
what exactly deems one an artist. 

True, an artist is usually judged and validated by an observing audience.
True, calling oneself an artist doesn't necessarily make you one. Also
true, having others declare you an artist doesn't always make you one.
Finally, it is true that one can be an artist, when one is not officially
recognized as such. To get to the kernel of this problem, we may need to
borrow a bit of methodology from the critical rationalist philosopher Karl
Popper. One answer may be that there is both a World 2 concept of artist
and World 3 concept of it , as well. The World 3 view would attend to the
outward (measurable?) cultural contributions by the artist. The World 2
view would see 'artist' or 'artistry' as an internal state of mind --
regardless of whether the artist is recognized or not -- relating to your
hypothetical Van Gogh example. (If you're not familiar with Popper's "World
1,2,3" conceptual framework, I'll be happy to summarize it.) 

The french artist Marcel Duchamp certainly had his own take on this
problem, as well: "Society takes what it wants. The artist himself doesn't
count, because there is no actual existence for the work of art. The work
of art is always based on the two poles of the onlooker and the maker, and
the spark that comes from that bipolar action gives birth to something --
like electricity. But the onlooker has the last word, and it is always
posterity that makes the masterpiece. The artist should not concern himself
with this, because it has nothing to do with him."

(My own view of artistry or 'creatorship', as you will see, conforms to
Popper's World 2 classification.) I am an artist myself, or rather an
aspiring one. Perhaps I am too close to the situation to analyze the
situation in any kind of 'objective' form. But as for myself, being an
'artist' is a gradual, cumulative process. [It may be something I try to
talk myself through.] Recently, I had a solo exhibit of my work in a
college art gallery. By all outward accounts, one could brand me an
'artist'. However, after the full-color announcements had been printed, the
guests notified, the work hung, the refreshments served, I looked around
the gallery and still wasn't quite satisfied with what I saw. To me, the
work looked like nothing more than competent figure studies. Nothing more.
I still didn't sense that the subject -- in this case, the human figure --
had been filtered through a genuine poetic vision just yet. To me, this is
the mark of an 'artist' -- whether he or she is recognized or not. Could
the concept of 'artist' be a state of mind?

Regards,
Joseph Podlesnik

----------
> From: cbennett@axionet.com
> To: Veronese
> Subject: GG: creator
> Date: Monday, November 11, 1996 8:49 PM
> 
> 
> Antoine:
> 
> Thanks for your response to my response. As I said in my inital post, I'm
> looking for information. One needn't "respond to my liking" - I'm happy
> with any response at all! Yours was comprehensive, but here I go again .
.
> .
> 
> >To my mind, an artist can only be
> >recognised as such: one doesn't declares oneself an artist, one becomes
an
> >artist through social interaction, exactly as I recognize in someone I
> >speak with an intelligent being, although I am perfectly aware their are
> >millions of intelligent beings out there, but...
> 
> I agree with this in part, but only in part. Social interaction must be a
> factor in becoming an artist, in that human beings generally engage with
> each other to some extent. And I agree that declaring oneself an artist
> doesn't *make* oneself an artist. But having others declare one an artist
> doesn't make one an artist, either.
> 
> By the same token, the fact that others have not declared one an artist
> needn't mean that one is not. Van Gogh, I believe, sold only two
paintings
> during his lifetime. Was van Gogh himself less an artist for not having
> been recognized as such until well after his death? And, for instance, if
> his paintings had been destroyed after his death, would van Gogh himself
> have not been an artist simply because he was never recognized?
> 
> But perhaps "recognition" is more important in defining the interpretive
> artist (actor, performing musician)? I suspect an audience (and therefore
> response and recognition) is much more integral to the act of
"recreation."
> 
> I don't claim to have a definitive answer to this, and I doubt that there
> is one. But it's fun to wrestle with the concept!
> 
> Thanks again!
> 
> 
> Catherine
> 
> 
>