" For all the collective liberalism and democratic lip service of fine art institutions and artists, in their collective hearts they are too often elite separatists who disdain and fear the general public. They see any understanding and acceptance of the public as a death knell for the importance of their work so they move on to rewarding and producing something more shocking, controversial and 'cutting-edge' to keep their distance from the 'untouchables'."
Cultural Separatism of the Contemporary Art Elite
by James Mellick, October 11, 2006
I was nearing 40 years-old when my art began to change from abstract formalism to a narrative and figurative style. Earlier content was more Brancusi and Noguchi-like in its simplicity and concern for the aesthetic of the perfect and essential form. This style was acceptable and familiar in academic circles. It was a style that was fundamental and could easily be taught and emulated by students. This art was about art and the recent history of art. Beside Brancusi and Noguchi, it was influenced formally by Moore, Hepworth, Nevelson, Bonticou and Pepper (Beverly, not Sergeant Pepper). Perhaps I liked abstraction and curvilinear, organic forms in sculpture, because I started out as a painter and was not part of the macho welded steel sculpture lineage of David Smith.
As painting grad crossing the barriers between painting and sculpture my early paintings were shaped-canvas paintings influenced by the irreverent attitude and flamboyant colors of Pop Art. Two of these paintings were acquired by the Swope Museum in Terre Haute, Indiana through an exhibition juried by Robert Indiana in 1972.
In the years that I've been out of teaching art in the university, I've come to understand that academic or artistic freedom is a myth. Artist/teachers who spend their careers with the academy have less freedom and time to experiment with new styles and evolve. They "dance with the girl that brought them to the party" until they achieve tenure and even then, as a professor they continue producing the same stuff that they did when they were instructors. Their concerns are more colleague and department driven rather than market driven. To keep their positions, they learn quickly not to "rock the boat" and conform by putting departmental expectations before their own. If Bob Dylan were a teacher, he would still be creating folk music and teaching folk music history. Outside academe, Bob Dylan and the freedom to change and had to change in order to survive as an artist.
Art history shows that many artists changed styles as they matured. Some of these changes were brought on by the group experience of social-political events (cultural). Compare late 18th Century and early 19th Century Franciso Goya. Others changed due to highly personal events in their lives (psychological). Compare the stylistic changes of Picasso. In both cases the content of their creativity changed from the group aesthetic of their contemporary art movement to a more personal aesthetic which was more autobiographical and usually more accessible to a broader audience. As the artist changed direction, one might say that their work became more humane and less dependent on the dogma of the current art movement. That is how artists who were followers, become innovators. An artist does not need to be "cutting-edge" to be radical. All they need to do is follow their informed convictions even if it means ignoring the current definition of contemporary art.
Younger artists, who have not yet hit any kind of a "wall", tend to be followers who draw from the life experience and work of older artists. It is likely that most of their work before they are forty will be academic and generally accepted by the established institutions of art. This is normal and expected. Sometimes I feel sorry for art students whose art and writing centers around their life experience when they haven't yet had any. They think they have lived a full life because they've been exposed to more things at an earlier age, but what they think is wisdom is actually self-centered dribble brought on by years of focus on their self-esteem. Older artists who have accumulated the good and bad of life experience, have something personal about which to write, paint or sculpt. Older artists who have been through and tempered by the fire of experience, have something to say with universal application and meaning. It is called wisdom. After the "change" they are less likely to be followers and more likely to be innovators with an even more unique styles.
The life and style changing "wall" in my case was the loss of a teaching position and the deaths of my mother, brother and father from 1980 to 1984. I was broken and then rejuvenated by the experience that told me that life was too short. It was time to create work expressing how I see the world rather than creating art that I think the art world wants to see. Around 1985 the style and content of my art changed forever.
It was around this time that my sense for social satire was replaced by compassionate humor. My creativity was bolder because I had the sense, given the darkness that I had experienced, I had nothing to loose. One thing that I learned from being with my family members with terminal diseases was the healing power of humor and laughter and finding joy where possible. By tapping into my own life experience for the content and meaning to inspire my new work, I found that it spoke to others with similar experiences. This added an element of universal truth to the new work. At times humor is a means of dealing with difficult subject matter. Humor does not make the ideas communicated any less true. It is fine to believe that honesty requires artists to deal with serious issues. The problem is when artists take themselves too seriously and become separated from their audience.
When I began the change, I did not jettison everything I learned and believed before. I held onto formal ideas and sense of design and built upon the previous experience and knowledge. When the wood sculptures became highly finished and I began using animal images as vehicles for story telling allegory, I knew I was taking a risk against the image of what contemporary fine art looks like in the minds of the artistic elite be they jurors or academics. The more my work became accessible and appreciated for various reasons by the "common" man (be they engineers, woodworkers, school children and even little old ladies), I think it became more suspect as serious art. It certainly did not fit the template of what contemporary art looks like in the minds of the "gate keepers". When it came to academic search committees and grants panels I was probably seen as an eccentric outside the normal orbit. Was I a sculptor who expressed meaning through finely crafted wood or was I a craftsman who believed that craft could have a message more significant than just technique and material?
For all the collective liberalism and democratic lip service of fine art institutions and artists, in their collective hearts they are too often elite separatists who disdain and fear the general public. They see any understanding and acceptance of the public as a death knell for the importance of their work so they move on to rewarding and producing something more shocking, controversial and "cutting-edge" to keep their distance from the "untouchables". This is why functional art and fine craft has always had a lower status among the artistic elite. These areas have enjoyed a broader appreciation and interest of the public. The contemporary craft movement has blossomed in the past twenty years while the art object in contemporary art has been killed off. The "gate keepers", who define "cutting-edge" and create "star artists" at the Whitney Biennial, have little control over the contemporary craft movement because fine crafts are market driven rather than driven by politics, inherited wealth and the avant-garde (my favorite French term).
During the first half of my life as an artist I was an insider. I have the Master of Fine Arts degree, was an art professor and along with that came some art authority and the respect of students and colleagues. I even had the attention of the media on issues about art. I was a part of the visiting artist network where faculty would trade invitations to exhibit and speak at other schools. I attended the college art conferences and kept abreast of the latest developments through art journals. Now all that stuff seems so academic and external.
The definition of an "outsider artist" is one who is self-taught without academic training. In art history, such an uneducated and uninitiated artist was also called a "naïve" (yet another French word). If I am considered an eccentric (in the kindest meaning of the term) then perhaps I'm an outsider by choice but I know too much to be naïve.
Henri Rosseau was an outsider to the French art elite and yet his fantasy paintings of flora and fauna have outlived any memory of his elite contemporaries who invited him to their parties just so he could be the object of their jokes. So unlike the French! Right? Am I right?
Things Elitists Might Say and Have Said
"I don't know why the Ohio Realist Group needs a grant...people like their work and they have no trouble selling it...the grant should go to an organization that needs help." --a panelist on the Ohio Arts Council
"You should apply in the Contemporary Crafts category since the Fine Arts category deals more with aesthetic issues." ---an administrator for individual artists fellowships of the Ohio Arts Council
"My work is too important than be bogged down by teaching students. That's
why I have teaching assistants."
---a likely comment by any professor in a major university.
"Working with your hands and creating actual objects of art is so third-world." ---a likely comment by any conceptual artist.
"My job is to design a masterpiece and think outside the box. I don't give a damn if the building is functional, if the roof leaks, how much it costs or if it is even possible to build." ---any architect who inherited the attitude of Frank Llyod Wright.
"My art museums are free standing sculptures and are testaments to my genius. Who cares if it is nearly impossible to install and display sculptures and paintings in them." ---any "god" architect.
"The parents of most of my students are ignorant, right-wing fools." ---a standard attitude of most faculty whose salaries are paid by those very same parents.
"We want to be corrective and pro-active in acknowledging past injustices to the African-American artist, but we expect their art to be different from the white man. We will greatly reward the black artist who knows their place by only creating primitive, naive, crude and untrained folk art that jives and shuffles to our expectations." ---the plantation (if not racist) thinking of many liberals in any urban arts community.