Yes, Pitchfork sucks. I am with Kerble on the fest, though. And I don't understand the Pitchfork bashing in this context. The article does not ever state that it's a "Pitchfork comp."

This compilation effort is obviously ridiculous, and possibly grotesque, but ultimately benign. As the Pitchfork writer stated (Yes! I am quoting Pitchfork!), will "anybody will actually buy the things"?

tipcat wrote:Yes, Pitchfork sucks. I am with Kerble on the fest, though. And I don't understand the Pitchfork bashing in this context. The article does not ever state that it's a "Pitchfork comp."

This compilation effort is obviously ridiculous, and possibly grotesque, but ultimately benign. As the Pitchfork writer stated (Yes! I am quoting Pitchfork!), will "anybody will actually buy the things"?

I don't know, you can't mention Pitchfork anywhere without some kind of negative comment. And rightfully so 90%.

That's just where the article came from. That big piece of shit-sucking-from-the-corporate-anus-of-hipster-stardom.

steve wrote:

...a lot of art "masterworks" are the product of commissions or designed to impress certain audiences, whom they service.

This is a conjecture. Some art is paid for by commission, and some particularly hollow art (Mark Kostabi's nonsense, for example, or Thomas Kinkade's) depends on an art-as-accoutrement market to exist. I contend that almost all great art is powerful because it is geniuinely, uniquely part of the artist, and is made with little consideration of its eventual audience. Some art is accidentally of interest, I suppose, but that which succeeds as intended to be great isn't ordered from a catalog.

By "masterworks" I meant that a lot of stuff commissioned by the Medicis and the Church is

a) in every standard Art History textbook
b) the realization of its purpose, its reason to be, as outlined by its commissioners (in content, theme, etc) and
c) even now put into service of history and commerce (in all their material formations - museums, tourist brochures, academia, calenders and coffee cups, etc).

I don't equate the two (craft and art), so I still don't see how art can serve anyone but the artist.

If your definition of art is that which is only made for its own sake, I don't know where you slot a Brunelleschi or Donatello. Artist or craftsman? I think the answer is both, at the same time. The distinction between an artisan (someone employed in industrial arts) and an artist (someone working in the liberal arts) does not hold.

Others will be able to speculate on this better than I can, but it seems fair to suggest that some exceptional images and objects currently produced as commercial art will be known to future generations with the "commercial" qualification unhinged.

A textbook definition of art includes "decorative" shit like this:


(Bust of Piero de Medici, commissioned by same, by Mino da Fiesole)

You can say it's not art, but you will reduce a lot of renaissance art to "mere" craft this way. It seems anachronistic to do so.

LutherBlissett wrote:You can say it's not art, but you will reduce a lot of renaissance art to "mere" craft this way. It seems anachronistic to do so.

It may be inaccurate to think of art and the process of artmaking today on the same terms as it was made back in the renaissance. Back then, did it even enter people's minds that art should serve only the artist, as Steve says? We live in a different time today, where many of us have our basic needs taken care of in such a way that we have the luxury to create art for ourselves. Did Donatello even have the time to create anything that was for himself? And if so, would that make it more or less meaningful than a commissioned work?

I would suggest that back then, those questions were irrelevent, because it was a different time, and people's lives were different.

LutherBlissett wrote:By "masterworks" I meant that a lot of stuff commissioned by the Medicis and the Church is
c) even now put into service of history and commerce (in all their material formations - museums, tourist brochures, academia, calenders and coffee cups, etc).

The commercial aspect of great art is almost an afterthought in the mind of any really great artist. Sure, most great works have had some sort of commission, or have been publicized by some sort of businessman. But this is only because artists have to survive somehow, and, in order to devote their lives to creating things, they need to somehow sell them. This does not entail the means becoming confused with the end. When Joyce wrote "Ulysses," he knew it wasn't going to be a very popular book, but he worked with his publisher to make sure the book at least landed in the bookstores. The only people he loved were his family, and he had to support them somehow. He was concerned with something far greater than sales--the fact that his work would live on through the ages as an example of great literature. This brings out just how brave he was--even with a family to support, he tried to dedicate himself to a personal style of art.

If your definition of art is that which is only made for its own sake, I don't know where you slot a Brunelleschi or Donatello. Artist or craftsman? I think the answer is both, at the same time. The distinction between an artisan (someone employed in industrial arts) and an artist (someone working in the liberal arts) does not hold.

I think you are again mistaking the means for the end. If Brunelleschi had only wanted to build a structure that could serve its functional purpose, he could have completely dispensed with the creative aspect of his architecture. He wanted the building to be inhabitable, of course, but, far more importantly, he wanted it to be looked at and appreciated.

Others will be able to speculate on this better than I can, but it seems fair to suggest that some exceptional images and objects currently produced as commercial art will be known to future generations with the "commercial" qualification unhinged.

Like what? Metallica's "Black Album"? "Brokeback Mountain"? The "Left Behind" series? Where can you find, in today's sea of commercial garbage, any art that will stand the test of time like Brunelleschi's or Joyce's undoubtedly will? You can't, because the aforementioned ephemera were geared towards moving units, not towards moving aesthetic sensibilities.

LutherBlissett wrote:By "masterworks" I meant that a lot of stuff commissioned by the Medicis and the Church is

a) in every standard Art History textbook
b) the realization of its purpose, it's reason to be, as outlined by its commissioners (in content, theme, etc) and
c) even now put into service of history and commerce (in all their material formations - museums, tourist brochures, academia, calenders and coffee cups, etc).

I hope you would agree that using a centuries-old paradigm of indentured/patronized artists as a template for the role of the artist in society is about as valid as using hereditary royals as a template for evaluating elected governments. You're using as examples of how art and artist currently function from institutional structures that haven't been standard in centuries, and probably only existed for a (relatively) short time. Less time than commerce as we know it has existed, certainly. Art for its own sake has existed since the first guy made the first mark on the first wall.

If your definition of art is that which is only made for its own sake, I don't know where you slot a Brunelleschi or Donatello. Artist or craftsman? I think the answer is both, at the same time.

Sure. Still, I don't think you can argue that a band on a record label is operating under a patronage-and-commission scheme that is remotely similar. I don't think you can argue that any artist working today is operating within a similar paradigm.

You can say it's not art, but you will reduce a lot of renaissance art to "mere" craft this way. It seems anachronistic to do so.

And you can use the renaissance to try to validate commercial art, despite the differences in intention and practice of the art worlds then and now. That seems at least as wrong, to elevate matchbook covers to the status of timeless classic artwork simply because someone paid for them both.

steve wrote:Still, I don't think you can argue that a band on a record label is operating under a patronage-and-commission scheme that is remotely similar. I don't think you can argue that any artist working today is operating within a similar paradigm.

I can argue that:


Artist: Me

Patron: My woman

Paradigm: Her vagina

Commission: Room and board

steve wrote:And you can use the renaissance to try to validate commercial art, despite the differences in intention and practice of the art worlds then and now. That seems at least as wrong, to elevate matchbook covers to the status of timeless classic artwork simply because someone paid for them both.

Certainly matchbook covers should be elevated to the status of timeless classic artwork. That would be my only exception, however. Well put, otherwise.

steve wrote:

If your definition of art is that which is only made for its own sake, I don't know where you slot a Brunelleschi or Donatello. Artist or craftsman? I think the answer is both, at the same time.

Sure. Still, I don't think you can argue that a band on a record label is operating under a patronage-and-commission scheme that is remotely similar. I don't think you can argue that any artist working today is operating within a similar paradigm.

In that "sure" we are in agreement that in one historical circumstance, artist and artisan, artist and commission/audience, came together to produce lasting artworks. My point was never to "argue that a band on a record label is operating under a patronage-and-commission scheme that is remotely similar." Take a look. I didn't suggest that.

My point was to suggest that the circumstances that give rise to some of (what are regarded as) the greatest examples of art in history are those which contradict a definition of art as that which only serves the artist. If we're discussing art, we're discussing art, not just late 20th-/early 21st-century art.

Present-day circumstances are different than earlier ones. Does this preclude "commercial art" from being or becoming simply "art"? I say no, you seem to say yes.

You can say it's not art, but you will reduce a lot of renaissance art to "mere" craft this way. It seems anachronistic to do so.

And you can use the renaissance to try to validate commercial art, despite the differences in intention and practice of the art worlds then and now. That seems at least as wrong, to elevate matchbook covers to the status of timeless classic artwork simply because someone paid for them both.

I don't think your matchbook analogy is a good one, but I certainly agree that renaissance patronage and 21st-century commercial sponsorship/co-option are radically different.

If we situate our definitions historically, we see that they depend on particular material-cultural formations. As the latter change so do the former. That's really my only point (and a point on which we seem to broadly agree). After all, I wrote:

The world of independent music is possible and is great because it is a mode of production by and for producers, wherein the relations of exchange as well as decision-making powers are not stratified into for-profit (exploitative) hierarchies.

LutherBlissett wrote:Does this preclude "commercial art" from being or becoming simply "art"? I say no, you seem to say yes.

Preclude? No. Encourage? Enable? Equally no.

It is possible for great art to be made with commercial intent. It is possible to build a house under water. Neither is as easy or as likely as under different circumstances, and we shouldn't pretend the difference itself is unimportant.