The importance, and trap, of artistic freedom

17 December 2009 by pcNielsen 3 Comments

My freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful
the more narrowly I limit my field of action
and the more I surround myself with obstacles.
Whatever diminishes constraint, diminishes strength.
The more constraints one imposes,
the more one frees one’s self of the chains that shackle the spirit.

Artistic freedom is important, and tricky. From it comes both great and enduring artwork as well as works that are easy to deride. Artists themselves will mostly poo-poo any kind of limitations, crying foul, claiming the great scapegoat of censorship. Their peers who willingly work within certain limiting factors (i.e. a commissioned work) are often branded as sell-outs.

The importance of artistic freedom
From the Herva blog, a post titled Artistic freedom and the trap of success:

    Most of my adult life I’ve been trying to figure out where my creative output “fit.” This is bull kaka. At least for me it is. If I wanted to be a craftsman, worker for hire, to create towards someone else’s need this would be fine. But I don’t. I want to express my vision, to create out of my soul and to make exist things that I would like to see/hear/read. So why bother trying to fit in anywhere?

    . . . Forget “fitting in.” AND, just as importantly, forget success. For now, I just want to create with as few constraints as I am mentally and physically able. I want to make music with my heart and my hands, to paint or write (or whatever) with my insides (intelligence, spirit, guts, soul) guiding my choices. Will anyone pay for it? I have no idea. Will anyone other than me think it’s good? No clue. But I have to allow myself not to care or worry about that right now. Every creator I’m a fan of creates things oozing in singularity, works that rise out of the sludge due to their originality, clarity, and vision. I don’t see the words acceptance or money in that last sentence at all. Do I hope that in doing this some “success” will come eventually? Sure. But in the making of it, in the actual creation, I want freedom.

Allowing artists this kind of freedom is important, it’s important in relationship to the cultural implications of art. Artists are observers. Their paintings and sculptures are responses to their environments: Built environs, social environs, relationships and so on. These responses create a cultural and historical record in a way no textbook will ever be able to.

Further, art should challenge us from time to time — as a culture and as individuals. For this to happen, an artist needs the freedom to venture outside of our expectations, outside of our comfort zones (and often their own). Paintings aren’t just for looking pretty and coordinating with the new couch. Remember the dangers of sentimental creativity.

The trap of artistic freedom
Artistic freedom is also tricky. It’s easy to abuse the responsibility inherent in that freedom, to adopt an anything goes mentality and create to simply push the limits, sensationalize. Attempt to gain attention, fame. To go after success and money (which is valid to a point). The trouble is the only guidelines for artistic freedom are vague, unwritten social cues. They’re not something a person can put down in black and white.

But they are still there.

Such freedom can also distract an artist; artists need some focus with their freedom. At the same time they need, for instance, the ability to explore a wide range of media and push those media to their limits, an artist needs to develop their craft. Whether they like to admit it or not, craft is an inherent part of every artwork. To become proficient — and (in theory anyway) gain respect and a voice — in a craft takes discipline. Discipline is, in essence, a set of rules, whether imposed by self or others.

Rules that will at first guide will then grow with the potential to be broken.

Process
Says Sarah Jane of the Faith and Foolishness blog, “The artistic process feels at times like a many-layered friend, whose complexities I have come to understand through long acquaintance, and who occasionally still manages to surprise me. I have great trust in this faithful and mysterious companion.”

Process will be different for every individual artist. Some will work better with more structure, such as Stravinsky. Others will create their best work with a lot of freedom, like Herva. Finding a balance, personally, is always more difficult than picking one or the other, but it must be done.

Filed under Art, Business of art, Censorship, Craft, Imagination

Fair use and art as interpretation

5 February 2009 by pcNielsen 4 Comments

Apparently the AP is going after the artist who created a poster of Obama based on one of their photographs. From TechCrunch:

    The Associated Press is on the wrong [side] of a fair use argument again. It is actually going after artist Shepard Fairey for his iconic Obama poster, which it recently discovered was based on an AP news photograph by Mannie Garcia. The poster is clearly based on that photograph (see comparison at left), but this is exactly the kind of use of copyrighted works that is meant to be protected.

    The poster is art. The image it is based on has been sufficiently transformed that even the AP did not know it owned the copyright to the underlying work until a few weeks ago. And Fairey says he hasn’t made any money from the poster, although others have . . .

    . . . Fair use is under attack, and the AP is leading the charge. Artists like Fairey take copyrighted images and reinterpret them all the time. Many argue that is what art is. Fairey’s Obama poster certainly made a bigger impact on our culture than the original image, which he reportedly found by doing a Google image search.

fairey_garcia

I have to side with TechCrunch here, who has officially banned the AP from their website for just this kind of thing. It’s not a copy, it’s an interpretation, and a pretty good one at that — personal politics aside. Thoughts?

Fairey’s poster spawned the Obamicon tool from Paste Magazine. I messed around with it and created the following:

picture-22

Filed under Art, Business of art, Censorship, Portraiture

Catholic’s criticism of art misguided?

6 June 2008 by pcNielsen 9 Comments

A disclaimer, this post is not intended to be an affront to Catholics. Please keep this in mind while reading the following entry which does discuss the denomination, as evidenced by the title above, and feel free to correct me on any points where I may have misrepresented any related doctrine or theology espoused by the Catholic Church.

A story via ArtsJournal reports the Catholic League’s Bill Donahue is at it again. I mentioned him last year when he raised Cain over Cosimo Cavallaro’s Sweet Jesus.

Donahue and the League are upset about a series of paintings by one Felipe Baeza, a student at the private Cooper Union. Baeza’s offending works combine erotic images with traditionally Catholic symbols such as rosary beads and a Crucifix. I haven’t seen the paintings in question, and by their description have no desire to see them, but I don’t agree with the Catholic League’s approach to these exhibits. Donahue also lead other recent protests against questionable art, such as Brooklyn Museum’s Sensation exhibit and Andres Serrano‘s Piss Christ.

By no means do I condone the way the assumed subject matter in works such as Baeza’s — based on description alone, mind you — is presented. I did a Google search for some images of the paintings but, thankfully, didn’t come up with anything. I did find his Facebook profile, and the following painting which seems to be by the same man:

[Per a comment from a friend of Baeza's on another site — which I've added to this post — I removed the image after receiving clarification that it was not done by this particular Felipe Baeza.]

I’m not a fan of censorship, but there is a balance to be struck between an artist’s exploration in subject and media, and resulting useful (read in part, “tactful”) artwork. It’s not too difficult to think of the messages Baeza might be trying to get across when reading slightly more elaborate descriptions of these paintings than I’ve posted here, but I can’t help but think he could have approached his canvases in a more deft manner. I’m not suggesting here that an artist change their intent, merely that they rework their presentation. Difficult (but still valid) subjects aren’t easy or fun to look at either way; works that come across as overtly sensational probably won’t garner enough respect to communicate to the generally hoped-for broad audience.

Regardless, I don’t think people in the Church, Catholic or otherwise, have much right to complain about works of art that don’t exactly put the best face on this fallible institution. The manner in which such artistic commentary is crafted might be worth noting, but not necessarily making public statements about — which I’ll get into shortly.

Referring back to Donahue’s criticisms, perhaps he believes his own denomination to be Divine and therefore infallible. I’ve known of Catholics with this attitude, although I don’t sense it’s a prevailing conviction. If I may be so bold, this would in fact be a naive belief, and I don’t understand how anyone could presently think so highly of the Catholic Church in light of the recent scandals that — unfortunately — plagued this enduring institution. No part of the Body of Christ can say with a straight face that they or their particular congregation has not made certain gross missteps along the way. I’ve grown up in, and still attend, non-denominational churches where scandals also mar the image of the Body. All such circumstances do harm to the name of our Holy God, which goes without saying. We are all guilty. We are all human.

However, this naive understanding is the only way I can validate The Catholic League’s public criticisms of such “ugly” paintings. Making formal statements against these exhibits only heightens awareness of them. This creates more publicity for the artist, which aids his or her career — unless they only intend to market themselves to a very narrow group of people — likely encouraging them to create additional similar pieces. With few exceptions, all publicity is good publicity. It seems to me that Donahue and the League are inadvertently doing themselves and their cause a disservice. Were they to keep quiet about the artworks, or keep their discussion and disgust internal, it’s much more likely such shows will go unnoticed. I’d never heard of Cooper Union before today, and were it not for the fuss raised by Donahue I would probably still be ignorant.

Art has historically addressed social and political ideas. It will likely continue to do so within its cycles. The Church’s past and recent Faux pas will remain potential targets, so to speak, for paintings and sculptures, just like war, politics and other cultural ills. Artists have every right to broach these subjects. The ones that do so in a respectable way will likely be the ones named in history books.

Filed under Art, Art and faith, Censorship, Christianity, Criticism, Modern culture

Ownership of art

15 December 2007 by pcNielsen 1 Comment

I’ve never quite felt the supposed inherent ownership of my artwork that artists are “supposed” to feel. My mother hassled me for years to actually sign my paintings that hang in her living room, something that I’ve only recently begun attempting on a regular basis with marketing in mind.

Thus I’m interested in the implications technology has on the arts, even though my own three-dimensional works aren’t much effected by this. The ease with which information is printed, uploaded and shared on the internet presents a complicated new problem for copyright law. I was reminded of this today when TechCrunch posted an entry talking about a photographer — Lane Hartwell — who got her feelings hurt by not being cited in a video spoofing Silicon Valley. She subsequently hired a lawyer, and the video’s creators removed the spoof from the internet instead of dealing with a lawsuit. TechCrunch comments on the scenario:

    “Societal ideals around what constitutes ownership over art are changing. People who try to protect and silo off their work are simply being ignored. Those that embrace the community, and give back to it not only allowing but asking for their work to be mashed up, re-used and otherwise embraced are being rewarded with attention. At the core is a basic implicit understanding – if you want to be part of the community, you have to give back to it, too.”

Recently, the well-known band Radiohead ditched its label and began selling its new album on its own, allowing listeners to set the price. Other big-name bands followed suit by breaking from their record labels, labels that are quickly dying by ignoring online potential. A friend of mine in the Northwest runs a photography business taking pictures of newborns and children; she retains no rights the product, but gives ownership over her clients. This is in stark contrast to friends of mine here in Northwest Arkansas who feel it is their responsibility to archive the memories of their clientele — which, I must admit, is a noble way to look at retaining ownership, but it’s also becoming an archaic way of doing business in the digital world.

One of the first posts I made on this blog used an image from the website of an artistic photographer. My post was about a local exhibit of this person’s photographs, mostly of Hurricane Katrina’s gulf-coast devastation. The photographer saw that I’d used one of the photos from his website and complained to me, saying he keeps “a tight rein” on where his images end up. Not wanting any confrontation (and being quite new to the blogosphere) I removed the the picture. In retrospect, from what I now understand of blogs and images on the internet, I was not in the wrong. In fact, this was free publicity for this artist; he should have thanked me and offered me the use of any image from his website for review on The Aesthetic Elevator.

This photographer’s mindset represents the mentality of the old guard. If he doesn’t want his images used by other people on the internet, he’d best not post them at all. It’s worth noting that this is the only occasion where I’ve been asked to remove an image; most of the time I figure it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission, although once in a while I do ask for permission depending on the type of photo.

Adding: I added a link above to Lane Hartwell’s blog discussing her frustration with having her work stolen. She has some legitimate complaints not related to the video referred to by TechCrunch, but at the same time she seems to lack a bit of business savvy — these comments based on her blog entry — suffering from the same naivety of the old guard when it comes to images online.

Filed under Art, Censorship, Modern culture

Blogging and the corporate nightmare

22 June 2007 by pcNielsen Leave a Comment

This is an off-topic rant, except for the fact that it deals with blogging.

NPR just talked to their sports guy, Stephan Pastis, who reported that a reporter at the College World Series was kicked out of the press box for blogging during the game. He had been warned, before and during the game, that this was a violation of the broadcasting company’s media rights. This may not have bothered me so much had I not just read up on the Net Neutrality website about how the big communication companies feel such a need to get a return on their investment in their “pipes.”

It must be said that I’m not fond of big companies, in general. This sentiment, in part, stems from a learned hatred for inept bureaucracy. But what I don’t understand is why these companies seem solely interested in their bottom line, the happiness of their stock holders, the salary of the CEO. Increasing their market share seems more important than the desires of their customers, in the case of so many companies.

And how bad would it be for companies like the communication giants to give something back. I know that my generation, in part, is more interested in the good they can do for society, for improving culture, in comparison to most 40 year old businessmen. And my working for a non-profit may also color my idea of big business. What if Verizon and AT&T just rolled with the idea of the internet and allowed anyone to use their pipes? What if reporters were allowed to blog from stadiums? Would the corporate world come crashing to a halt.

I doubt it.

And allowing such things would be great PR for these behemoths. Especially for the first one to do it. Bring back service; bring back “the customer is always right.”

Filed under Censorship, Modern culture, Personal reflection

Christian response to “My Sweet Lord”

3 April 2007 by pcNielsen 3 Comments

Wonderfully articulate defense of the sculpture from the rejesus blog:

    . . . “Incredibly the gallery has claimed that the timing of this exhibition is just a coincidence. It’s unfortunate because the timing of this exhibition gives the piece real power. Easter, a festival previously associated with Jesus’ death and resurrection has been largely overtaken by the chocolate industry. Seeing this sculpture at this time of year gives it a real edge.”

And an equally well-spoken counterpoint from Arts & Faith:

    “The cross is bitter. It represents death. It is a horror, and, if it is by grace the instrument of our salvation, it is grace at its most severe and excruciating.

    Two hundred pounds of chocolate connotes decadence, indulgence, delectation, surfeit. At best, it is the stuff of Easter, not Good Friday. The contradiction of medium and message is as jarring as a Good Friday Mass set to carnival music. (I’m ever so slightly reminded of the scene in Flags of Our Fathers in which vanilla ice cream sculptures representing the flag-raising of Iwo Jima are set before the ‘Iwo Jima heroes’ at a gala function — and then drenched in a blood-red cherry sauce.)”

Other comments from the blogosphere:

    • “Quick question… If people are protesting the chocolate Jesus why aren’t they protesting “TESTAMINTS”???”

    • As a friend of mine has said over and over, it is only because of the common knowledge that the Pope does NOT issue fatwas that arteests such as this repeatedly muster the “courage” to poke Catholics in the eye. Let them try this with a life sized sculpture of Mohammed, if they have the stones for it. Let them “explore those themes”.

    • Filed under Art, Art and faith, Censorship, Chocolate, Christianity, Modern culture, Sculpture

    Norwegian sculptures censored

    16 March 2007 by pcNielsen 1 Comment

    Gustav Vigeland’s sculptures in Oslo’s Vigeland Park awoke Thusday, to their surprise, wearing clothes — well, black squares anyway. As reported by CBC.ca, a person or group of people covered the statues genitals and breasts, leaving a note that talked about how Norwegian newspapers showed too much nudity. The note was signed F.M.N.H.

    Boing-boing referred to the perpetrators as “prudes” — a bit hasty judgment on their part, methinks. The spot goes on to rightly say, “You know, the insidious thing about nudity is that not one of us is safe. Beneath our clothes, deep down, we are all, every one of us, nude.” The CBC article reports some feel the incident is a prank, while others call it vandalism. A comment on Art Threat says it was a prank by students of Westerdal.

    It’s hard for me to call it vandalism as no permanent damage was done to the sculptures. Why not call it performance art? Were I the sculptor (and still alive) I would laugh!

    European sentiments about nudity are very different — usually more liberal — than American. Just ask friends of mine who put up a German student in between apartments. He would come out of the bathroom from showering in the buff with no reservations. My friends (female) were, needless to say, very surprised.

    How do we (Can we?) strike a balance between the God-endowed beauty of the human body and the mystery of our sexuality? The cynic in me knows it’s a lost cause. The optimist in me can’t help but try.

    Digg this!

    Filed under Art, Beauty, Censorship, Modern culture