The Dictatorship of Art (rough Draft)

The Dictatorship of Art (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 express and express it however they want to. In a way it is a miracle that art in essences has not yet succumbed entirely to the tyrannical ways of feedback, what people want may be important art forms like music, -it has become a industry and as such must serve its customers what they want-, but the rest is still pretty much dictated by the artist. 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). From there the rest of us follow, not unlike how we deem important that which, has been told to us is important; branded cloths are important because they give us status; the Egyptian revolution is problematic because extremist may take power; the earth was the center of the universe…

 In the artistic universe, the artist dictates 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 mostly religious public  whished it. However, when people started seeing this beautiful creations they wanted more, and thus more was given to them. 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 expressed something, that it took brain to see appreciate this art, and suddenly even critics saw beyond a black block on a white canvas. Abstract are became the trend and like sheep we 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.