Art for art's sake

For those who think art is, at least in part, craft, the idea of the artist's assistant gives pause for thought.

Do artists "design" their work? Is that all they need do? Should they not make them too? These questions were of course asked in Warhol's day, and he delighted in his ability to make shedloads of money from the credulous.

A modernist like Dr Zen, of course, deplores this sort of behaviour. I find it easiest conceptually to think of what Damien Hirst does as "art". Hirst is a brand name, a cypher, not an artist. His work is aimed at making money, he does it to make money I mean, and nothing really besides that.

What irks me, I suppose, is the idea that choosing to do art can be made to be like choosing to be a lawyer. You might do the latter because you have a love of justice, order and all that jazz. Or you might see it as a good way to make a buck.

I don't want art to be a career choice. It isn't for me. It's something I feel compelled to be involved in. (By art, I mean the whole spectrum of creative endeavour, of course.)

Hirstian "art" has not quite made it into the writing world. Yes, Virginia Andrews is still writing books despite her being dead for several years. Yes, James Bond novels abound. Yes, there is, and always has been, ghost writing (probably, this is more analogous with the architect's studio, where the head architect has the concept, and the juniors put it into action - but that kind of art is by its nature collaborative anyway).

But Stephen King writes his own stuff, so far as I know. He doesn't employ a team.

Writers have editors, of course. There's no one comparable in fine art, which is not usually considered to be revisable in the same way as writing. Sometimes an editor writes as much, or more, of a book as the author. But we do not respect a writer who we know needs that.

posted by Dr Zen @ 11:11 pm