Thursday, February 15, 2007
February 15,2007
I keep thinking about this notion of the artist social role. It seems bothersome to me to have to organize ourselves into any specific place or categorization. The roles given to us (i.e. the intellectual, the skilled worker, the entrepreneur or the social critic) are blanket descriptions of only parts of our jobs. Can it not be enough to be called artist? Perhaps I am making a false assumption here, but I feel in order to be an artist you are required to be all of these things. You should think, you should be skilled in you craft, you should be able to market yourself and you should be able to respond to life around you. Breaking the whole of us into a system that perhaps makes it easier for others to feel they understand artist is not going to help us in any way. Besides it can be limiting to exist as only one of these things. Parameters should never be set like this on the whole of anyone’s work. It would confine your thinking perhaps eventually making you somewhat obsolete to the world. I don't know about you but I feel like I enjoy living in the world and being a part of it as an artist.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I agree with you that artists in reality assume a combined mixture of all of the roles they describe but the exercise of classifying (by virture of work/careers that are already established) I think it is important to understand what the public's perceptions are. Understanding how we are percieved doesn't mean we have to conform to it, but it does acknowlege that these systems of "catagories" are already out there wether we like it or not... I think it also serves a good purpose to remind us that we do have a vital role in society and that what we do and send out into this world has implications.
i agree with you anne. all categories (for artists or anyone else) do is further divide people. and we often compromise ourselves in order to identify with these often limited ideals without even realizing it.
Post a Comment