The Dictatorship of Art (revised final draft)

The Dictatorship of Art (revised final draft)

Early drawings like those of the Altamira Caves in Spain showed that men even in the Old Stone Age had the ability to produce art; likewise even back then the nomad hunting groups had social stratification. It appears that there are some practices that we continue to carry on for millennia, today we still produce art as a form of expression and have different levels of hierarchy in our societies. Thus, it probably does not come to a surprise that this two mix; art like many other human practices is submitted to a stratified order.  Art is not art unless recognized by and authority on the field; it may sound despotic but, it is an outsiders recognition that validates many of our actions; and that in theory is perfectly logical. Our institutions and society all fallow top-down system,  there are selected few that make the decisions that affect the rest of us, in the house it’s the parents, in countries politicians, and in art it’s a mixture of critics, artist and patrons. Just like with our parents and government, in art, we believe to have some level of influence, but in reality is a loosening the cage that hold us. With art it is not a cage but a tool that keeps us enthralled to our despot.

 The hierarchies in art tend to be more complicated because the system sometimes consists of only an individual; such is the case with collectors and the artists. Other times of groups, such as with critics and colectors.  In the case of collectors it is the individual who determines worth. As   Michael Kimmelam, - chief art critic at the New York Times- explains in “The Art of Collecting Light Bulbs”,  “prestige, like taste in art, is often in the eye of the collector, and true value maybe greatest when the value is only symbolic” (218). Collectors are dictators of their own little artistic universe, art is what they choose to collect, and in way their collections in their own right become art.  Anything goes from candy wrappers to Rembrandts; they are able to present such a view of these things that we accepted them as art.

Collectors, critics, patrons and even artist themselves dictated what is art, they are in the top of the artistic chain of command.   Collectors gather what they believe is valuable and arrange it how they see it fit; patrons commission what suits them be it a self-portrait or a concerto for their anniversary; artist create what they want to, however they want to. It has resisted in most cases, been ruled by feedback. What people want may be important for artistic expressions such as music, -it has become a industry and as such must serve its customers what they want-, but the rest is still mostly dictated by the artistic elites. Understanding collecting as an artistic expression; Kimmelman explains that collectors; “make order out of chaos”, they arrange all the elements of their collection to make us see something new, they connect the impossible and thus create (219). While these creations can be forms of art in their own right they are again impositions of what is to be liked.

 And the critics and patrons of the artistic universe, the elites, dictate even the feedback responses created by the public. If we think of all the art movements throughout history they have never come to existence because the people want it. The renaissances started with artist wanting to be true to form, looking for new subjects; certainly not because the Church or the pious public wished it. However, when people started seeing this beautiful creations they wanted more, the Catholic Church and the privileged became the main patrons of the renaissances. Moving to the present, who would have considered a black square on a canvas art? Not many certainly; it was not an aesthetic creation devoted to form and color, but the vanguards said it did expressed something, it took brains to understand and appreciate this art. Suddenly even critics saw beyond a black block on a white canvas, abstract are became the trend and we, the public, like sheep fallowed.  Patrons, critics and collectors wanted this neuron challenging art, and so the rest of us started to see it in another light. Perhaps there are ways to this madness; it was just a matter of taste.

 It is taste now an instrument, for the authoritarian ways of art; we are given options. Not unlike going to a gellatteria, there are amazing flavors which we don’t find in our regular ice cream parlor. However, no matter how outstanding their variety is we still need to choose what is there, we can mix and match but our options will always be limited. Our decisions have already been narrowed down by whoever decides what that shop serves, on a greater picture this happen to everything around us even our body.  According to Steven Johnson, in “Listening to Feedback”, the brain process is all due to feedback, it regulates our body.  And this feedback system allows homeostasis, balance, to exist in the human body (196). However, Johnson is not entirely correct, while the body in general works thanks to feedback; it is not feedback that controls the body, the brain does.  When a person has even the smallest of chemicals imbalances in their brain, the entire system gets affected. It may cause a hormonal disproportion which results that persons aggressive attitude or the fact that they faint, anything can happen just because there is a glitch in the controller of the system. We are in all aspects dependant of some sort of tyranny, be it our brains or our impulses, feedback plays a lesser role.

 Even the most feedback dependent art, music, is controlled by small elites. When we listen to music on the radio, it has been that which the station has selected, that same music has before been chosen by the music companies. It does create a chain; we listen to what is chosen for us, and the songs that are publicized are chosen because we listen to them. Resembling the demand of abstract art, which started with the acceptance of the critics, the top ten songs in America became hits because they had been played over and over by the nation’s most popular radio stations. In the same way we chose the gelato from the previously decided menu, it is a shift in perception that which allows us to believe that popular demand is the one in control, when truthfully it is not. There is a mirage created by media in regards to news, which takes holds in the same manner. “The mechanism for determining what constituted a legitimate story had been reengineered, shifting from top-down system with little propensity for feedback, to a kind of journalistic neural net where hundreds of affiliates participated directly in the creation of story” (Jonhson194). What is considered a neural network for journalism is nothing more than the same reenergized tool of the dictatorship in art, taste.

The authoritarian system is still in place, however it does not necessarily work the same, taste comes to play a role in the dominances system. We are given options, like collectors we provide order to the universe of chaos streaming the possibilities of what can be considered art. There is indie, pop, classical, surrealist and even junk art; this new forms have already been established by artist, critics and collectors. However, we can now choose the one that suits us best. Just like in the wonder cabinets that to Kimmelman served to store all those random things that people considered valuable, our art preferences serve to capture all that we deem  precious (221). It works like a playlist, in it we put a compilation of the songs we like. A soft romantic piano piece by Eric Satie can be followed by a dark and heavy Led Zeppelin song, and that by sweet nineties pop tune; or it can be a string of death metal compositions one after the other. Our tastes can be a medley of many things or a constant repetition of a few. However unless we are also creating the tunes that go in our playlist, we are reproducing someone else’s idea of what is music.

Reproduction is in its self tool of taste and henceforth of art. That song that is played over and over in a radio station gets stuck with us, and maybe in the beginning we did not pay much attention to it. However, after a while of hearing constantly it starts growing on us, we learn the lyrics or the melody, suddenly that familiarity with the piece turn into our liking of it. Like that bed time story our parents used to tell us, which seemed strange the first nights but later became a warm childhood memory. Both the song and the story become a casualty of reproduction while they may not be in the instinctive to our likes, their continuous presence for a period of time makes them blend into them. Art has its own tool which can persuade our likes. Also reproduction makes art more accessible, allowing it to reach a broader audience, thus more can be influenced by it. Walter Benjamin, the communications theorist in “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” explains the role that mechanical reproduction will have in art. For Benjamin reproduction destroys the essences of art and at the same time makes men fall even deeper into the consciences of the mass, “quantity has been transmuted into quality. The greatly increased mass of participants has produced a change in the mode of participation” (129). He believes that reproduction and technology are the enemies of art, and while his arguments can be fit regarding the soul of art, reproduction has transformed into an enlisting agent by art. Just like taste has posted a danger throughout the development if many art forms it has also proofed it power in prolonging the control elites can have over the masses. While music before the gramophone and the radio was a commodity that could only be enjoyed while been performed making it, in comparison to today’s music industry, almost inaccessible to the masses. Today music, unless reproduced, has very little possibility of been remembered. Reproduction became a new tool, like new media and feedback for news network, it serve to reach a broader audience to which ever art form is been replicated into infinity.

And while reproduction has made art more accessible and taste has given us more space in the universe of art, they are tools of domination. Even as choice over ‘likes’ have become our weapons in the front of art elites, at the end of the day, it’s just like a school cafeteria, you can only choose from what has been preordered as your choices.  We can push and shove to include what we like, but when we do that we are also becoming part of the elite that dictates, even in a democratization of art. Reproduction in another hand makes us prone to be controlled, it like siren’s song drawing the sailor into oblivion. As Alexis de Tocqueville once said, “Democracy is the tyranny of the masses”, there is always an imposition of a group over another. And while art can in some places find democratic strips the outcome is the same; It’s limited and ultimately under a greater influence than that of the common man.

Johnson, Steven . “Listening to feedback” Emerging. Barclay Barrios. Boston. Bedford/St. Martins, 2010. 190-204. Print

Kimmelman Johnson. “The Art of Collecting Lightbubls” Emerging. Barclay Barrios. Boston. Bedford/St. Martins, 2010.  216- 225. Print

Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” Visual Culture.Joanne Morra and Marquard Smith. New York. Routledge, 2006. 114-133. Print.