[iDC] Three emails combined as requested related to Art, Lifestyle & Globalisation Questions

[Cecil Touchon]

Hi Simon,

Thanks for your post. You write...

 

>>>In Europe and elsewhere we have lived for two generations within a 

>>>rather benevolent context. If it was not for a socio-economic system 

>>>where relatively generous arms length state support for the arts, and 

>>>other non-industrial means of production, was default we would have 

>>>seen a very different development in the arts and society since the 

>>>mid 20th C.<<<

 

Excuse my ignorance but what is the support given to artists by the
governments your referring to? It is a living wage? Some sort of tax break?
Food stamps? Free studio space and materials? 

 

Are artists free to express themselves and think whatever they like and do
as they please without accountability or the loss of that support? Are
artists under these systems able to be upwardly mobile economicly should
they desire to be?

 

Or is the support indirect somehow and less intrusive? The only support for
artists that I see in the USA is the possibility of sales on an open market.
As such, artists clearly need to be engaging in artistic activity that
generates art as capital that can be sold for whatever it might be worth on
the open market. In this regard, a visual artist would need to act in the
same professional way as an architect or industrial designer. 

 

However, being an individual producer not dependant of any particular
client, an artist can work "on speculation". In other words, can create
whatever art one wishes and then attempt to find a market for it after the
fact rather than the other way around.

 

This seems like the best arrangement for an individual artist from the stand
point of not being accountable to anyone and thus free to explore one's work
as one wishes subject only to market viability.

 

Are you saying that you see this as a flawed approach? I wish to point out
that the larger market that allows contemporary artists to liquefy their
capital wealth generated by their long tedious hours of solitude in the
studio, is the market built, not by artists, but by art collectors so that
they may easily recover their investment when they wish to on the art
objects that they acquire as they might with a piece of real estate or a
stock. Even though it does, to a large extent, fail to value a great deal of
contemporary production, it still seems reasonable that artists would avail
themselves of it.

 

Your write: 

 

>>>Post Object art, performance and most media art, much of conceptual 

>>>art...in fact most of what could be described as post modern 

>>>practice, would not have become the dominant forms of our time. That 

>>>much of the impetus for this has come from Europe is not 

>>>coincidental. Such paradigms of work are only possible when value is 

>>>ascribed in ways not afforded by the sort of socio-economic model on 

>>>which the US is predicated and which Howard is suggesting should be 

>>>default not only there but globally. One could also argue this using 

>>>the example of food production. McDonalds versus artisinal food 

>>>production.<<<

 

Yes, it seems logical that if you remove the dire need for income from the
life of the artist, then he is going to figure out other things to do with
his time and resources that do not require a sellable and desirable object
as an end product nor spend the sacrifice of developing and exhibiting craft
skills that give a work of art a sense of value, namely sensual integrity
and material quality. This is especially going to be true if there is an
underlying contempt for the development of capital that might be bought away
from the artists by the economic elite. Interesting development; do you
regard it as a viable model for a global arts community?

 

In this regard however, it seems to me, that you are saying that European
artists on the public dole are providing the public with hyper objects that
cannot be valued on an open market. Are you saying this is to be preferred
or is somehow more advanced than an open market approach?

 

Correct me if I am wrong or if I misunderstand but it really sounds to me
that you have it backwards as far as who is providing artisinal food
production and who is providing denatured food as entertainment instead of
nutrition (as in McDonalds).

 

Additionally, it seems to me that, like government workers, artists on the
public dole will be inclined to determine the value of their work based on
the compensation they are receiving. That does not seem like a system that
would flourish indefinately. Do you find that to be true or false?
Obviously, I am only speculating.

 

It seems to me that if your working under the patronage of the government,
the system itself is going to have profound and far reaching influence on
the arts community it is patronizing and, in effect, muffle it and reduce
its voice to a merely political one. Is that a wrong assumption?

 

Are you saying that you believe that the arts community should not create
wealth and capital such as people in any other form of industry or
production do? If you are suggesting this, then I am wondering how you
envision artists having any position to effect change globally or for that
matter even in one's own apartment.

 

Your write:

>>>The sort of model that Howard is promoting is based on a mean 

>>>perception of human nature, predicated on an understanding that 

>>>people are only motivated by their own need and where profit can only 

>>>be gained at the expense of others. This is the logic of capitalism. 

>>>It is also the logic of the criminal mind.<<<

 

I do not read that at all in what Howard said. I think Howard is saying that
in a world of capitalism we are forced to generate capital in order to eat.
I have been grappling with this and am feeling like the best thing is not to
resist the obvious but rather figure out how to make it work in a way that
is livable. I see that you're saying that capitalism must be resisted in
favor of something else. I don't see how you're going to do that but would
love to hear the something else you think could be put in place that would
prevent or supplant it and hear what kind of world that might be.

 

I see the big issue actually being privatization of what was public. That is
the trend that is the economic cutting edge the last few years and that is
seen as the new frontier so far as wealth generation in concerned. I am
assumed that is an inevitability but perhaps it is not?

 

However, if privatization is, in fact, the sweeping wave then the cultural
community would certainly have the most potential for generating wealth and
leading the way toward how best to use it. This is not to say that wealth
will feed the starving or heal the sick but if the cultural community
determined to see an end of profound poverty under the assumption that many
of our artist brothers and sisters are among them waiting for the day that
they may dream a dream larger than survival then, with this global
communication that we have, we could begin to dream up a better world. A
world that we could coordinate outside of governmental controls... Just as
private citizens working to create examples of the better world we think
might work. In other words, utopia building as an art form.

 

After all, the wealthy are doing exactly that. They are building the world
that they want for their own purposes in order to secure their power over
the "people" to make them good consumers of the products they have the
people make for them. 

 

World Peace and general prosperity is the best thing that could happen for
many corporations. We are the creatives. What are we doing? What do we want
to do?

 

Another thing we could look at as an art form to play with is economic
theory. I really don't trust the theory every one always talks about -
supply and demand -  there is something wrong with that. What if we invent
some new ways for people to think about wealth and poverty and how to
harmonize them so that every one has a way to have enough to live on. For
some reason that seems to have not been figured out yet. I don't mean to
take it from the wealthy who should still have wealth if that's what they
want. I have got nothing against wealth. That is what supports art. Maybe
artists need to figure it out. 

 

less poverty = more patrons.

 

I look forward to your response.

Cecil Touchon

http://cecil.touchon.com <http://cecil.touchon.com/> 

817-944-4000

 

 

Hi Joe,

 

>>>We must be allowed to produce value, but our

irrepressible desire to express ourselves must be kept strictly under 

control.<<<

 

Allowed by who? Kept under control by who?

 

Cecil Touchon

 

 

>>>Make revolution irresistible. But most importantly, avoid making

capitalists richer by selling them your labour (selling them your 

product is ok).<<<

 

 

and make sure the value of your product it not tied to the value of your
labor or your time or your location.

 

Cecil Touchon

http://cecil.touchon.com <http://cecil.touchon.com/> 

817-944-4000

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