This is going to be a fairly scrambled response, mostly a collection of thoughts tangential to the readings I’ve had off late.
It’s hard to regard the artist as anything but an institutionalized asset whose esthetic sensibilities are hijacked by the post-Fordist mechanism to uphold an industry under the capitalist experience. This is more so the case when I think about art in the context of art school.
Recently, a friend questioned me, but what about the art that I make in my sketchbook as a way to interface with my emotions?
And yes, what of it?
What about the art that erupts as murals on protest sites? Who preserves that? What is the object-hood or value of that art? Is that too esoteric? Inward looking? Ideologically corrupt? Clearly, there is a system of class in place that creates a hegemony of art.
During my Junior year as a Painting major, I began questioning why people were making the art objects they were or curating shows or spending any time whatsoever trying to express the interiority of their selves. My painting professor at that time told me, “Art won’t save the world, we are not doctors. These are not the questions to ask. This is not how you can look at it.”
But if the art in art school isn’t for saving the world, then what is it for? What does the artificial liberation of the artist signify?
How do we rescue art from a hegemony it perfectly fits in, or imbue them with an ideology that surpasses the constraints of the socioeconomic structure it begs to support?