Even More on Karate Chopping Robots

Scott wrote:

"And should any artist have to make fricken commercials for running shoes?"

Well, there's the problem right there. No artist should have to make running shoe commercials, or put a big mac in God's hands. And they don't. That's the unfortunate love child of creativity and money...

What I mean is this. We have our need to express our ideas and feelings. We have our need to support ourselves and our families.

Only the very luckiest of us, in my estimation, get to mix the two.

This is very well said. It reminded me that in all of history, there has never been some golden age where artists were paid what they were worth. Infact, modern Hollywood might be the epitome of artists being remunerated for their services. However this is probably a hinderance to the cultivation of art, and not a positive trend.

But no, starving artists are nothing new, and no artist is forced to "sell out." But here is what IS new-- the rise of mass media is contributing to a concentration of artistic influence. Here are some of the problems I see:

1. Some arts being lost. Some arts just don't have mass appeal, or they do not lend themselves well to mass media. Argueable the greatest of the arts have this in common: the accomplish the impossible-- human perfection. It is these arts in particular which are being lost today. Novel writing, ballet, violin.... these arts require a rare devotion and years of study. Classical musicians know that to be concidered competitive, they need to practive a minimum of six hours a day. What "day job" can they get that would allow them this sort of practice time? But there are fewer and fewer resources for society to nurture these young potential aritsts. And so this art is being lost. And the same is true of novel writing-- could writers like Melville, Hemingway or Flannery O'Conner find buyers for their novels today? And I could say the same of certain kinds of acting today....

2. Art is being cheapened. I love expressionist art. One of the most beautiful things I've ever heard is a quote from painter/composer Arnold Schoenberg, "When life is so ugly, how can I make beautiful art?" Yet, in today's culture, there is no apetite for truth in art, only escapism. True, because there is so much money in Hollywood, occassionally a film gets made that bucks this trend, but in the other arts, expressionism is all but lost.

3. Art is losing local flavor. As art is being concentrated by mass media, fewer artists at the local level are able to support themselves-- this is especially true of young people who lack money from heaven.

4. I could also say that creates artificial trends in art. Todays artistic trends are governed less by what artists have to say about society, and more about what we are willing to tolerate. Our "art" no longer fully reflects society, except in a sort of vaccuous way.

Really, I guess everything I'm trying to say Andy Warhol said better without the use of clumsy words.Ah, Andy....