The most damaging thing that happened to art and artists, was turning art works into commodity like products, and the artistic process into a payed job. Add to this the complexity that comes with public funding of some of the art forms, and what you get is a dysfunctional system who renders being an artist and art making, an extremely challenging endeavor.
Artists shifted from a shaman like role, high priesthood, oracles, prophets, mediators of spiritual content etc, into business entrepreneurs, producing products to be marketed and sold. The core essence of what art is and why societies, communities and individuals need it, has mutated through that transition in irreparable manners. It has taken artists and their work, hostages of a system which negates and cancel the specific context needed for art making to make sense, to do its thing, to be of value. And in the process, it has created a reality where the vast majority of what is considered art and those considered artist, have almost nothing to do with either.
One of the most harmful aspects of this shift, manifests clearly through the gradual emergence of what is best defined as ‘gatekeepers. The concept in which art and artists need to be curated, mediated, let in, selected, approved and so on, by specific people, which are not artists and who act as gatekeepers, is anti art. The presence of those ‘middlemen’, is a direct result of turning artworks into products. Naturally, the drive, interest, agendas and overall vision of the gatekeepers, has to do mostly with things which are foreign to the Art they are managing, thus creating a constant friction between what art is and needs, and how the art world is being managed. These gatekeepers, are carefully chosen by the system, who makes sure their primary allegiance is to the system who appointed them, rather than art, artists, and the public. The result is that most artists who are let in and pushed up, are services providers, rather than free art makers who are more often than not, labeled as trouble makers, crazy and so on.
In a way, it’s a reproduction of the general current political systems, in which politicians serve first a foremost, the interests of corporations, central banks and other unelected power groups, over those of the citizens they’re supposed to serve.
Artists and their art, exist best when they have direct access to their audience. When sharing the work, is part of the work. When the audience is an active player in choosing and engaging with art and artists.
The current art world is structured like the fast food industry. What we need, is less MacDonalds, and more chef owned restaurants. Less supermarkets chains, and more local farmers markets.
Art is nourishment. It needs to be seen, structured and treated as such.
