Art and the Artist By Max Daniel
Can we separate the artist from his work? 21st media culture heralds an era of unprecedented access to the inner lives and thoughts of our favorite filmmakers, musicians, and public figures. These celebrities can tell us hourly their thoughts via social media, or we can access them through paparazzi world fueled by the American consumer’s insatiable desire to get as close as possible to their admired celebrity. From whatever angle we look at it, we know more about our favorite artists and writers now than at any point in human history. It may not be unreasonable to suggest that we are reaching a point where our intimate knowledge of the artist overshadows their creative work.
We see this phenomenon most starkly with the preponderance of celebrities in reality television – these are people who may or may not have actually done substantial work but are portrayed as if they are important and relevant. In these cases, their daily, filmed lives become their creative output, and the boundaries between life and art are blurred. Contemporary American popular culture sees no difference between the real, true-life individual and the artificial, executive-produced on-screen persona. Every episode or music video becomes a kind of self-portraiture. The individual and his work become indistinguishable.
Additionally, socially and politically conscious artists often actively seek to merge their work with a personal mission and ideology. The life and career of Pete Seeger provides one example, who combined his lifelong passion for music with grassroots activism. More recently, filmmakers like Michael Moore and actors like George Clooney produce work that advances explicit social or political aims. Between the success of reality television and the popularity of celebrity charitable and activist causes, the cult of personality has become an essential tool of modern culture.
However, the political leanings of an artist may cause them to intentionally limit performing or distributing their work because of a boycott – for example, the English singer-songwriter Elvis Costello’s (and other artists’) boycott of performing in Israel. In the case of cultural boycotts, we see the greatest dangers of conflating the individual and their art – access to the creative work itself is determined by the personal opinions of the artist. Here, art becomes a divisive weapon, a commodity of the morally superior, and a bargaining chip in a larger political game.
We now reorient our critical perspective to those artists and celebrities who did not blossom in today’s hyper-active American culture, yet who are still culturally relevant and stand between the old and new models of celebrity culture. In recent years, Woody Allen has seen a substantial public backlash from allegations of the purported sexual abuse of his daughter. For some, latent misogyny, sexism, and amorality begin to emerge as the focal points of Allen’s films and initiate a critical reappraisal of his career. Less criminal, but still shocking to many, are Bob Dylan’s multiple appearances in the past decade in television commercials for Cadillac, Victoria’s Secret, and most recently at the Super Bowl, for Chrysler. These instances are met with angry accusations leveled at the folksinger for “selling out,” and critiques that he has turned his back on the socially conscious political line he emphatically advocated for in the 1960’s.
We are a culture that sees the life of the individual as supremely integral, and often identical, with their creative output, and vice versa. However, it is necessary to know that this identification of the two parts of an artist is an essentially contemporary construction, and that unprecedented access to biographical detail and the success of reality television has rendered an independent existence of a work of art next to impossible. In 2014, fully appreciating a book, painting, film, song, or television program is incomplete without knowing about the artist’s life. We crave information about actors and musicians – it is seen as discerning or bizarre if we lack biographical information, as in the cases of reclusive authors like Thomas Pynchon or J.D. Salinger. One result is that there exists an unwritten cultural standard that creative work must be aligned with personal life, as they are viewed as two sides of the same coin. The values espoused in one sphere should appear in the other. Because of this, controversies surrounding those like Woody Allen and Bob Dylan emerge – the romantic insight of Annie Hall or the politically inspiring The Times They Are A-Changin’ clash with the antithetical personal choices of the artist. Is an artist unable to deeply understand and beautifully express ideals and values that he or she fails to embody? Artists are not politicians or moral leaders – their primary concerns are expression and representation, not action.
Yet I fear that as popular culture adapts to the new model that conflates the individual with his or her art, a critical lens that removes the biographical element will become irrelevant as artists begin to create with the knowledge that the public will read their lives into their work. Those like Kanye West already engage in this type of highly self-referential creativity, which significantly limit the reach and appreciation of his music to those unfamiliar with the cult of “Yeezus.” We might then begin to apply this to works of art or texts that do not possess this level of self-consciousness, resulting in anachronistic interpretations that arguably distort the original work of art. For example, reading Shakespeare’s dramas as primarily a reflection of his personal life or his contemporaries’ risks eliding the universal and timeless qualities that allow his work to endure.
My proposition for a critical distance between the artist and his or her life is only an opinion on interpretation. Certainly the lives of da Vinci or Virginia Woolf are important to undertake a thorough study of their works – but it is a mistake to identify the two as solely a reflection of the other. By this logic, anonymous creative works are impossible to fully appreciate or analyze. Human beings – even the most prolific and visionary – are fallible, but the art that they create extends beyond their earthly confines. Creativity is an attempt to access the sublime, and limiting the boundaries of art to the individual who created it denies man’s ability to transcend, however fleetingly, his mortality and individual circumstances. The power and beauty of art must surely go beyond the frail artist, as the most significant paintings, songs, or films possess a quality that even the artist herself may not understand.
At The Current, we constantly engage in questions about the relationship between the subject and the object, whether it’s a review of photography exhibits at the MoMA, a critique of the Women of the Wall movement, or an analysis of the questionable history of Rwandan President Paul Kagame. In our personal essays, those lines become blurred as subject and object merge. We hope that this diverse issue will challenge assumptions and propose new perspectives while showcasing some of the finest and most intelligent student writing on campus.
// MAX DANIEL is a senior in the GS/JTS Joint Program and Editor in Chief of The Current. He can be reached at med2181@columbia.org
We see this phenomenon most starkly with the preponderance of celebrities in reality television – these are people who may or may not have actually done substantial work but are portrayed as if they are important and relevant. In these cases, their daily, filmed lives become their creative output, and the boundaries between life and art are blurred. Contemporary American popular culture sees no difference between the real, true-life individual and the artificial, executive-produced on-screen persona. Every episode or music video becomes a kind of self-portraiture. The individual and his work become indistinguishable.
Additionally, socially and politically conscious artists often actively seek to merge their work with a personal mission and ideology. The life and career of Pete Seeger provides one example, who combined his lifelong passion for music with grassroots activism. More recently, filmmakers like Michael Moore and actors like George Clooney produce work that advances explicit social or political aims. Between the success of reality television and the popularity of celebrity charitable and activist causes, the cult of personality has become an essential tool of modern culture.
However, the political leanings of an artist may cause them to intentionally limit performing or distributing their work because of a boycott – for example, the English singer-songwriter Elvis Costello’s (and other artists’) boycott of performing in Israel. In the case of cultural boycotts, we see the greatest dangers of conflating the individual and their art – access to the creative work itself is determined by the personal opinions of the artist. Here, art becomes a divisive weapon, a commodity of the morally superior, and a bargaining chip in a larger political game.
We now reorient our critical perspective to those artists and celebrities who did not blossom in today’s hyper-active American culture, yet who are still culturally relevant and stand between the old and new models of celebrity culture. In recent years, Woody Allen has seen a substantial public backlash from allegations of the purported sexual abuse of his daughter. For some, latent misogyny, sexism, and amorality begin to emerge as the focal points of Allen’s films and initiate a critical reappraisal of his career. Less criminal, but still shocking to many, are Bob Dylan’s multiple appearances in the past decade in television commercials for Cadillac, Victoria’s Secret, and most recently at the Super Bowl, for Chrysler. These instances are met with angry accusations leveled at the folksinger for “selling out,” and critiques that he has turned his back on the socially conscious political line he emphatically advocated for in the 1960’s.
We are a culture that sees the life of the individual as supremely integral, and often identical, with their creative output, and vice versa. However, it is necessary to know that this identification of the two parts of an artist is an essentially contemporary construction, and that unprecedented access to biographical detail and the success of reality television has rendered an independent existence of a work of art next to impossible. In 2014, fully appreciating a book, painting, film, song, or television program is incomplete without knowing about the artist’s life. We crave information about actors and musicians – it is seen as discerning or bizarre if we lack biographical information, as in the cases of reclusive authors like Thomas Pynchon or J.D. Salinger. One result is that there exists an unwritten cultural standard that creative work must be aligned with personal life, as they are viewed as two sides of the same coin. The values espoused in one sphere should appear in the other. Because of this, controversies surrounding those like Woody Allen and Bob Dylan emerge – the romantic insight of Annie Hall or the politically inspiring The Times They Are A-Changin’ clash with the antithetical personal choices of the artist. Is an artist unable to deeply understand and beautifully express ideals and values that he or she fails to embody? Artists are not politicians or moral leaders – their primary concerns are expression and representation, not action.
Yet I fear that as popular culture adapts to the new model that conflates the individual with his or her art, a critical lens that removes the biographical element will become irrelevant as artists begin to create with the knowledge that the public will read their lives into their work. Those like Kanye West already engage in this type of highly self-referential creativity, which significantly limit the reach and appreciation of his music to those unfamiliar with the cult of “Yeezus.” We might then begin to apply this to works of art or texts that do not possess this level of self-consciousness, resulting in anachronistic interpretations that arguably distort the original work of art. For example, reading Shakespeare’s dramas as primarily a reflection of his personal life or his contemporaries’ risks eliding the universal and timeless qualities that allow his work to endure.
My proposition for a critical distance between the artist and his or her life is only an opinion on interpretation. Certainly the lives of da Vinci or Virginia Woolf are important to undertake a thorough study of their works – but it is a mistake to identify the two as solely a reflection of the other. By this logic, anonymous creative works are impossible to fully appreciate or analyze. Human beings – even the most prolific and visionary – are fallible, but the art that they create extends beyond their earthly confines. Creativity is an attempt to access the sublime, and limiting the boundaries of art to the individual who created it denies man’s ability to transcend, however fleetingly, his mortality and individual circumstances. The power and beauty of art must surely go beyond the frail artist, as the most significant paintings, songs, or films possess a quality that even the artist herself may not understand.
At The Current, we constantly engage in questions about the relationship between the subject and the object, whether it’s a review of photography exhibits at the MoMA, a critique of the Women of the Wall movement, or an analysis of the questionable history of Rwandan President Paul Kagame. In our personal essays, those lines become blurred as subject and object merge. We hope that this diverse issue will challenge assumptions and propose new perspectives while showcasing some of the finest and most intelligent student writing on campus.
// MAX DANIEL is a senior in the GS/JTS Joint Program and Editor in Chief of The Current. He can be reached at med2181@columbia.org