The Dictatorship of Art (revised rough draft)

The Dictatorship of Art (revised rough 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 well it’s a mixture of critics, artist and patrons.

 The hierarchies in art tend to be a little more complicated because the system sometimes consists of only an individual; such is the case with collectors. 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.

 In the artistic universe, the artistic 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 then 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 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 is. 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 just 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.

Choice over  likes have become our weapons in the front of art, but 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. 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