[…] What was our place in this social darkness, too vast for the nineteenth-century sociologists’ concepts of “community” or “society”, let alone for institutions consisting of people as distinct from statistical groups? Where did we belong, on a human scale and in real time and real space? Whom or what did we belong to? Who were we? […][*] – Eric Hobsbawm
There is no doubt that our world has become more complex, while we also have a better understanding of how complex the natural world to which we belong is. This increase in human complexity has occurred as a result of technological advances, but also, more mundanely, because there are more of us and we have become more interconnected as a result of globalisation and emigration. At the same time, there has been a massive increase in higher education enrolment and an enormous increase in the number of middle-class people in developed countries from the 1950s to the 1980s, which were years of immense general prosperity. This was accompanied by an increase in female labour-force participation, and ultimately, the idea that everyone should work and not be idle has been thoroughly cemented into our collective psyche, that one needs to carry his own weight, be productive, and deserve his place in society – the meritocratic society – which is a well-meaning concept but, as usual, has often been distorted into moralistic non-sense.
All of these changes have been accompanied by an enormous increase in entertainment possibilities and a decrease in the value of high culture, as pop culture has carried the day and now there is no visible boundary between the two, not through massive assimilation (though there is), but through a conscious rejection of what was associated with previous times when we were not so equal, and thus a culture that did not represent the masses, which are now firmly and positively represented and can participate in public life freely. This has been a significant improvement. However, in situations where, as in the arts, there was a small elitist community where everyone could easily understand each other, the democratisation of the arts, the adoption of mass culture for elite culture, has caused intense shock and confusion. And this is not to say that there were no negatives in the previous situation, because there were. However, as with any change, there are new negative and positive aspects, as well as winners and losers; in this case, the positives outnumber the negatives. Nevertheless, I would argue that the negatives are also noticeable in the cultural sector and of importance to be addressed. The visual arts, the sector I am most familiar with, has become a tower or, more accurately, a field of Babel, because art is both international and local, compounding the effects of cross-cultural (i.e., state) influences and localisms, as well as the friction between the two.
There is a clear sense that many languages are being spoken now in the art field, and even though many times one is speaking to one another seemingly with the same background, access to information and knowledge, and having studied in a similar environment, one clearly or not so clearly is not speaking the same language, it’s like someone speaking Spanish from Mexico and Spanish from Spain, it’s the same language but there are some unavoidable differences. This is due to both how the language is spoken and each individual’s cultural background. This phenomenon is exposed in the arts through minor differences in opinion and tastes, and it is more visible when people write about something or share their uninhibited taste. It is subtle, and therein lies the problem, most of the time one does not understand this situation right away and so it is very hard to come to a conclusion on how to deal with it.
This eventually has led to the current situation in which we understand each other through the lowest common denominator, money. We began to regard an artist almost as a business. An emerging artist is a start-up, whereas a well-established artist is a stable corporate entity. Similarly, there has been a resurgence in academic focus. Nowadays, it is critical to know what MFA an artist has at the start of her career, as well as what residencies, prizes, or grants she has received, or by which gallery she is represented. While these are all valid criteria for judging an artist’s work, the work should ultimately be judged by the work itself, not by where the artist studied or lived for 6 months, and so on. This over-reliance on these mostly capital-denominated parameters only reaches such importance due to the lack of understanding between the parts. And again, this lack of understanding is not great, in terms of total incomprehension, it is subtle. Hence, while we are all seemingly speaking about and making art in the same way, we are not. We are as close as neighbours but neighbours with views to different sides of the street.
How do we bridge this chasm? I would argue that with time and the continuation of globalisation, but also with a strong dose of reducing inequality, which has crept up at an alarming rate since the 1980s and exacerbated this problem. Is it all bad? No, not at all. All of this new access to the arts has resulted in the largest art market yet, albeit one that is much more volatile, ruthless, and fast-paced than before. But there was no doubt that a dose of red-blooded capitalism was also required, and as a result, the artist can be more independent than ever. However, he must contend with forces that are much stronger and, at times, incomprehensible and less understanding than before. The rewards are greater, but so is the competition, at a time when we have abandoned old certainties in search of new ones. A regulative concept à la Kant.
[*] Hobsbawm, Eric. Fractured Times – Culture and Society in the Twentieth Century, Little Browm, 2013, Great Britain
Martim Brion 