Artists

[Jallen]

Hi,
Perhaps there've been posts about this before but I have a question:
What happens to, for example, actors and artists in a communist worker's democracy? Are they considered "workers"?
These days, some film actors belong to the group with the largest income, while some actors, and especially artists, don't earn as much because they don't belong to "the best."
Will crap actors still be given an opportunity to act in big films? Will big films still exist at all?
Perhaps this is a trivial subject but I'm interested to know :)

[Post-Something]

Well, when people have more time on their hands to pursue the activities they want to because of reduced work hours, and also communal access to art supplies etc, the aim would be to make everyone a potential artist, and therefore eliminate the category "proffessional film star", or artist. Everyone is an artist.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Right a big thing would be the democratization of the equipment needed to record albums or film and edit movies. Right now that equipment is pretty consolidated in a few locations, but I would imagine people could set up recording studios; people would be able to borrow film equipment, have fancy editing software freely available and so on.

Right now a lot of this is possible to a certain extent under capitalism, but distribution is all locked-up and controlled by large companies. After a revolution this wouldn't be the case.

[blake 3:17]

By nature, we tend to rebel against the existing order, whatever it happens to be. Artists, as a class, are very mixed politically. Many are apolitical, some are conservative, others are leftwing.

Under capitalism, if you want to "make it", you need to be both kind of radical and subservient to the demands of different sections of bourgeoisie.

An overwhelming majority of artists in the advanced capitalist countries work and live under poverty incomes. There's always a hope of either getting rich or finding a reliable means of subsistence.

Under socialism, I have no clear formula. I'd hope that people working as artists would have more than basic needs met and be given opportunities for intellectual and creative development.


As Post-Something said, everyone is an artist. Everyone is an intellectual, everyone is a cooker and cleaner, everyone either produces or reproduces. We wouldn't have classes that are defined by bits and pieces of one's life.

Regarding "big films" -- I'm mostly interested in miniatures and tend to see a fair number of short films with few cast and crew, but I also enjoy totally decadent block busters. In a genuine democracy, allocation of resources and methods of distribution/consumption could be decided collectively and then we'd take it from there.

[Q]

The Russian revolution saw an explosion of artistic experimentation, in Russia and worldwide. Surrealism is a well known example spawn from this. I recommend this (http://www.socialismtoday.org/120/manifesto.html) and this (http://www.socialismtoday.org/128/art.html) article as background reading.

[bricolage]

The Russian revolution saw an explosion of artistic experimentation, in Russia and worldwide. Surrealism is a well known example spawn from this. I recommend this (http://www.socialismtoday.org/120/manifesto.html) and this (http://www.socialismtoday.org/128/art.html) article as background reading.

Surrealism grew from Dada which had emerged independent of any Bolshevik doings. Constructivism is a much better example.

[RedRise]

A question of my own: Would it be possible to be a professional artist, writer, film-maker, etc? I have long had the dream of being a fiction writer but if everyone is an artist, how do we decide what gets published and who gets paid for their art?

[bcbm]

A question of my own: Would it be possible to be a professional artist, writer, film-maker, etc? I have long had the dream of being a fiction writer but if everyone is an artist, how do we decide what gets published and who gets paid for their art?

i don't think anyone would be getting paid for anything because communism will provide free-access to material wealth for all. as for publishing, i think the basics means to publish would be available to all. i think the internet would be a positive tool to provide summaries of new works that are available and then literature could simply be publish when there is a demand, ie, someone requests a copy so as to limit waste.

[Jallen]

Thanks guys.

Maybe this would produce better quality art, as you would only have people contributing for the art itself, instead of making money off it. the same goes for literature. Also, if everyone was able to publish we'd be getting more material. Publishers might not like what an artist or writer has produced, but others might.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

Thanks guys.

Maybe this would produce better quality art

I think it is definite that better art will be produced. People will have complete creative freedom to pursue what interests them and they will be free to explore things they would not have the time to do in today's society.

[Luisrah]

Not to mention that I suppose that when artists start to be so famous because of their art, they could be relieved from their work perhaps, because they are needed in art.

For example, a musician that makes music that everyone loves probably will be allowed not to work, because people want him so much playing and composing that he can only do it well if he has enough time.

[StoneFrog]

This thread has helped me as well, as a developing artist i have found you end up doing art work not for yourself but to survive. What something started off as doing something that you enjoy becomes static. I think with the downfall of capitalism an explosion of art will occur, freedom of expressing yourself not expressing what others want. All people think about now is profit,
"The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every profession previously venerated and regarded as honourable. It has turned doctors, lawyers, priests, poets, and philosophers into it's paid wage-workers."
I feel true art is only acquired with the expression of the true self, not what will make a buck so to speak. With the freedom that will occur after the liberation of the workers, art will bring about new avenues of the mind.

[Jallen]

I feel true art is only acquired with the expression of the true self, not what will make a buck so to speak. With the freedom that will occur after the liberation of the workers, art will bring about new avenues of the mind.

This will change one day :)

[Jimmie Higgins]

This thread has helped me as well, as a developing artist i have found you end up doing art work not for yourself but to survive. What something started off as doing something that you enjoy becomes static. I think with the downfall of capitalism an explosion of art will occur, freedom of expressing yourself not expressing what others want. All people think about now is profit,
"The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every profession previously venerated and regarded as honourable. It has turned doctors, lawyers, priests, poets, and philosophers into it's paid wage-workers."
I feel true art is only acquired with the expression of the true self, not what will make a buck so to speak. With the freedom that will occur after the liberation of the workers, art will bring about new avenues of the mind.

In my experience, people tend to hate the social atmosphere of "art scenes" (not without cause) because in contemporary society, everyone who is trying to be an artist has to hustle constantly and this creates an atmosphere of insincerity where people have a lot of shallow connections to each other because they don't want to alienate themselves from someone who might have connections or might be the "next big thing".

Artists are forced to compete for limited gallery space and exposure in magazines and newspapers and having an audience with important taste-makers. This leads to the art itself being very trend-based and somewhat unwilling to make any social commentary or take risks unless it is a stylistic one.

Art takes skill and time - something that most workers don't have the ability to develop/get. In the renaissance, artists took on apprentices who learned the craft/skills and had patrons who paid their way so they had the time. In modern society, artists usually have to become teachers in art colleges or get grants to be able to have the time they need. This obviously limits the amount of people who can viably be artists.

Like other people have said, a worker society people will have the free-time to develop their skills and have access to free ongoing education so they can train themselves in the skills they want. They would also have more access to the materials needed to create art.

If we are free from spending most of our day concerned with making money for someone else, then people will have the freedom that in the past was reserved for nobles and the idle rich (who somehow tended to be the people in the past that became artists and writers).

[black magick hustla]

I think the whole idea of "professional artist" will and should dissappear. I don't like the idea of someone fixing someone else's roof while he scribbles for a living. Obviously this is a fuzzy idea, but I would imagine whatever is the sort of democratioc administration we will have in any sort of communist society will decide what is "socially useful" as in what field requires people to work in, not as in if art is worthless or not. In that way, people will have enough free time to do whatever they want.

[black magick hustla]

also art is disgusting. let all the louvres burn down. art critics are the worst tho. they should all burn too and from their ashes let us build a community pool

[New Tet]

also art is disgusting. let all the louvres burn down. art critics are the worst tho. they should all burn too and from their ashes let us build a community pool

Please tell me you're kidding, please.

[CELMX]

also art is disgusting. let all the louvres burn down. art critics are the worst tho. they should all burn too and from their ashes let us build a community pool

:ohmy:listen to yourself! you should be ashamed!
The paintings in the Louvre are amazing works of art that artists (not bourgeois fakes like contemporary art nowadays) took years, decades to formulate and paint. And you say we should destroy it? Shame.

I don't agree that "art critics" should burn, however, I hate the bourgeois fucks that call themselves art critics nowadays. Art critics that actually judge art based on beauty and symbolism are great; but all they do now is try to sell paintings at the highest price possible. IMO, everyone should be an "art critic," and just decide if they like that work of art themselves.

comrade, you should appreciate art. just because you don't like some pieces of art doesn't mean it should burn. Other people like it too! You are basically burning others' happiness/joy/hard work! :(

[black magick hustla]

my comment was tongue in cheek but was not completely false. I don't like people who have the pretense that there should be such thing as professional artist and that somehow, they deserve to be so. This idiot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Keen argues that Web 2.0 signals the death of art because now "professional artists" cannot compete with the "cultural feces" people publish in youtube, poetry webpages, etc. Good riddance, I want all art to burn down.

[cenv]

Any revolution worth its salt will abolish art as a commodity. This implies the destruction of art as we know it as well as the end of the "professional artist" and the abolition of art as reification. In fact, "art" as an isolated sphere of human activity, the control and packaging of human creativity, will cease to exist altogether.

In the words of the situationists, we realize art by abolishing it.

[bcbm]

listen to yourself! you should be ashamed!

well, his name is dada...

[New Tet]

my comment was tongue in cheek but was not completely false. I don't like people who have the pretense that there should be such thing as professional artist and that somehow, they deserve to be so.

I like some people (in fact, many) who have pretenses as well as opinions I dislike.


This idiot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Keen argues that Web 2.0 signals the death of art because now "professional artists" cannot compete with the "cultural feces" people publish in youtube, poetry webpages, etc. Good riddance, I want all art to burn down.


I agree that this Keen character is wrong, but your response to his bullshit is way out of proportion and shares a page with the common vandal for whom nothing is sacred, not art, not literature, not education, nothing, not even the actual life of pretentious people.

[New Tet]

Any revolution worth its salt will abolish art as a commodity. This implies the destruction of art as we know it as well as the end of the "professional artist" and the abolition of art as reification. In fact, "art" as an isolated sphere of human activity, the control and packaging of human creativity, will cease to exist altogether.

In the words of the situationists, we realize art by abolishing it.

Can anyone say "Baby and the Bathwater?

[New Tet]

well, his name is dada...

Ironic, no?

[bcbm]

Ironic, no?

someone with the name dada calling for the destruction of art? no, seems par for the course.

[New Tet]

someone with the name dada calling for the destruction of art? no, seems par for the course.

Perhaps you're just not entirely clear on Dadaism:


Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_movement) that began in Zürich (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z%C3%BCrich), Switzerland, during World War I (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I) and peaked from 1916 to 1922.[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dada#cite_note-0) The movement primarily involved visual arts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_arts), literature (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literature)—poetry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetry), art manifestoes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_manifesto), art theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetics)—theatre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatre), and graphic design (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphic_design), and concentrated its anti-war (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-war) politics through a rejection of the prevailing standards in art (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art) through anti-art (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-art) cultural works. Its purpose was to ridicule what its participants considered to be the meaninglessness of the modern world. In addition to being anti-war, dada was also anti-bourgeois and anarchistic in nature.
Dada activities included public gatherings, demonstrations, and publication of art/literary journals; passionate coverage of art, politics, and culture were topics often discussed in a variety of media. The movement influenced later styles like the avant-garde (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avant-garde) and downtown music (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downtown_music) movements, and groups including surrealism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrealism), Nouveau réalisme (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nouveau_r%C3%A9alisme), pop art (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_art), Fluxus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluxus) and punk rock (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punk_rock).

Dada is the groundwork to abstract art and sound poetry, a starting point for performance art, a prelude to postmodernism, an influence on pop art, a celebration of antiart to be later embraced for anarcho-political uses in the 1960s and the movement that lay the foundation for Surrealism.
—Marc Lowenthal, translator's introduction to Francis Picabia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Picabia)'s I Am a Beautiful Monster: Poetry, Prose, And Provocation


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dada



"Destruction of Art", Indeed!

[9]

To the original poster, there was actually a thread on this topic a couple months ago which will perhaps be more instructive: http://www.revleft.com/vb/would-role-artists-t117602/index.html?t=117602

My opinion on the subject is pretty much in line with this post (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1547181&postcount=7) by bobkindles in the older thread.

[bcbm]

actually, i'm very familiar with dadaism. cuz i'm lazy, from the wikipedia...


According to its proponents, Dada was not art, it was "anti-art (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-art)." For everything that art stood for, Dada was to represent the opposite. Where art was concerned with traditional aesthetics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetics), Dada ignored aesthetics. If art was to appeal to sensibilities, Dada was intended to offend. Through their rejection of traditional culture and aesthetics, the Dadaists hoped to destroy traditional culture and aesthetics.

[black magick hustla]

I agree that this Keen character is wrong, but your response to his bullshit is way out of proportion and shares a page with the common vandal for whom nothing is sacred, not art, not literature, not education, nothing, not even the actual life of pretentious people.

i hold some things sacred but art is not definitely one of them.

dada was not art and the dadaists never considered themselves artists and whatever they did, had more to do with trolling a bunch of museaum curators, politicians and asshole art critics than to do "art". the dadaists would have probably made out of the louvre a nice bonfire

[New Tet]

actually, i'm very familiar with dadaism. cuz i'm lazy, from the wikipedia...


According to its proponents, Dada was not art, it was "anti-art (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-art)." For everything that art stood for, Dada was to represent the opposite. Where art was concerned with traditional aesthetics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetics), Dada ignored aesthetics. If art was to appeal to sensibilities, Dada was intended to offend. Through their rejection of traditional culture and aesthetics, the Dadaists hoped to destroy traditional culture and aesthetics.

Aesthetics is not art itself, but one of various ways to interpret it:


Aesthetics (also spelled (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences# Simplification_of_ae_.28.C3.A6.29_and_oe_.28.C5.93 .29) æsthetics or esthetics) is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauty), art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauty).[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetics#cite_note-0) It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senses) or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgment) of sentiment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentiment) and taste (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taste_%28sociology%29).[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetics#cite_note-1) More broadly, scholars in the field define aesthetics as "critical reflection on art (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art), culture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture) and nature (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature)."[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetics#cite_note-2)[4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetics#cite_note-3) Aesthetics is a subdiscipline of axiology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiology), a branch of philosophy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy), and is closely associated with the philosophy of art (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art).[5] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetics#cite_note-4) Aesthetics studies new ways of seeing and of perceiving the world.[6] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetics#cite_note-5)

[/URL]
[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetics#cite_note-5"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetics
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetics#cite_note-5)

[9]

Confining what constitutes "art" to what is marketable and popular in art galleries is ridiculous imo. Anybody can make art; it's just that, obviously, usually only (petit-)bourgeois kids are afforded the opportunity to go to art school and get an education in it, and pursue it in any meaningful way. Art would obviously have a different character entirely in a communist society, so suggesting that the problem is inherent in art itself rather than a product of capitalism doesn't make a lot of sense.
Though I am in agreement with others here that there would/should be no such thing as "professional artists" in a communist society.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Yeah, I hear people say "everyone's an artist" a lot and while I like the sentiment, in reality this idea is idealism in capitalist society. Really it's "Everyone has the potential to be an artist"... but since time and skills and the ability to show art and so on are all locked up under capitalism only a very tiny amount of people actually can be "artists".

The goal of a revolution should be to unlock all human potential through the abolition of wage-labor so that everyone can develop whatever skills they want and follow their own interests.

But this doesn't mean that past art is abolished or unimportant. Do we get rid of all bourgeois science just because it was developed in an unequal system and often through the profit motive? No if it's good then we should use it and learn from it and enjoy it. Feudal, Classical, Bourgeois art will still be "valuable" to future societies and worth studying and learning from and simply enjoying. In addition, when art is freed from being an investment for capitalists, we will be able to more fully judge art by it's aesthetic, historical, or technical merits.

[Steve_j]

Anybody can make art; it's just that, obviously, usually only (petit-)bourgeois kids are afforded the opportunity to go to art school and get an education in it, and pursue it in any meaningful way.

:confused: Do you class meaningful art, as art that is economically succesfull? Otherwise i cant make any sense of your statement.



Art would obviously have a different character entirely in a communist society, so suggesting that the problem is inherent in art itself rather than a product of capitalism doesn't make a lot of sense.

That i can understand :)

[9]

Really it's "Everyone has the potential to be an artist"....

Which, by the way, is exactly what I meant when I said "everyone can make art".

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I am personally a defender of 'the arts' as a whole - music, visual art, theatre and opera.

As somebody above said, it could become an aim, perhaps even an educational policy, to introduce and expose all workers from a young age to these disciplines.

Art may not be a revolutionary concept, and thus may be sniggered at by some. However, art is culture, and we are little but an ant farm if we are not cultured.

[9]

:confused: Do you class meaningful art, as art that is economically succesfull? Otherwise i cant make any sense of your statement.

No, but it is difficult for people (and I am speaking directly from personal experience here) to make art who work a fulltime job because there is little time to make it a focus. Most of the time that I have to make art is time that I should be spending sleeping. If I wasn't basically an insomniac, I wouldn't really have any time for it at all.

[blake 3:17]

^^ Exactly. Too make any body of good art takes time, time, time and the material resources to do it. To say nobody should be an artist is like saying nobody should be anything in particular.

I'm all for the smashing of divisions of labour, that shouldn't prevent people from doing what they're good at or what they have particular enthusiasms for.

One of the other biggest challenges for art is total economic instability and fluctuations in income. People may have a good year -- they sell some work, get some grants or a decent teaching gig -- and then nothing the next. It's real easy to go from a period of making a living income to subpoverty very very rapidly. Taxes turn into a frigging nitemare! The Writers Union of Canada has done some interesting advocacy work around this, so that writers and artists could be put into tax brackets based on average income over a several year period rather than simply per annum.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Which, by the way, is exactly what I meant when I said "everyone can make art".
No argument - I was just adding my thoughts to your post which I thought made an excellent point.

[Steve_j]

^^ Exactly. Too make any body of good art takes time, time, time and the material resources to do it.

Not true, in terms of music john cage wrote one of the most challenging pieces of art music with nothing more than 4 mins and 33 seconds of silence. Time yes, material resources, not really.

[Psy]

I already covered this Art in a Communist Society (http://www.revleft.com/vb/art-communist-society-t78626/index.html?t=78626)

Like I said there for large scale centralized artist productions (like large movie productions) the studio as a collective would overrule the artist and the large society would over rule the studio based on past performance not current projects (basically larger society would only be putting pressure on the studios based on what the studio has out for consumption at that time) over what the larger society has allocated to them.

Yes this means artists doing large projects would be limited by mass appeal but only to the point studios would only allocate a portion of what the larger society allocates to them for experimental projects and projects with limited appeal. It would also prevent artists from wasting resources for shots of limited use-value, as an artists of a major picture as for more resources it would put more pressure back on the artist from society to deliver use-value equivalent to the use-value the project consumed in production.

What does this means to the artist? Well it means an artist probably won't be able to simply just be a director of a major motion picture without first proving themselves in smaller projects, turning larger studios into a meritocracy.

[black magick hustla]

To say nobody should be an artist is like saying nobody should be anything in particular.


Not really. again, i dont like the idea of someone fixing someone else's plumbing while the owner of the house plays guitar for a living. Its like being a professional videogamer

[9]

^Yes, but you seem to be suggesting that in order to play guitar, you must be some sort of bourgeois. I work fulltime, I don't have any college education, I pay rent, I come from a working class family, and... wait for it.... I play guitar (and banjo, mandolin, ukulele, and harmonica :p). Just because someone plays music hardly means they must be some sort of bourgeois University physics student ;)
If you are familiar with the history of blues and folk music in the US, it has very proletarian roots, as do many kinds of music. Most of my friends and my room mates are working class, and most of them play music. But the same goes for art as for music: lessons cost money, instruments are quite pricey, time is very limited. And anecdotally, if I'd had to take lessons, I'd never have bothered - the same goes for art. So working class people are much more limited by their natural abilities with respect to the arts; the opportunity to learn it is generally not there, so if it isn't a natural talent, it is unlikely to happen.

[New Tet]

^Yes, but you seem to be suggesting that in order to play guitar, you must be some sort of bourgeois. I work fulltime, I don't have any college education, I pay rent, I come from a working class family, and... wait for it.... I play guitar (and banjo, mandolin, ukulele, and harmonica :p). Just because someone plays music hardly means they must be some sort of bourgeois University physics student ;)
If you are familiar with the history of blues and folk music in the US, it has very proletarian roots, as do many kinds of music. Most of my friends and my room mates are working class, and most of them play music. But the same goes for art as for music: lessons cost money, instruments are quite pricey, time is very limited. And anecdotally, if I'd had to take lessons, I'd never have bothered - the same goes for art. So working class people are much more limited by their natural abilities with respect to the arts; the opportunity to learn it is generally not there, so if it isn't a natural talent, it is unlikely to happen.

Speaking of which:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErMWX--UJZ4

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/10/boy-on-ukulele-does-jason_n_387602.html

And the boy's inspiration is a guy who, according to the blurb, is self-taught:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDftOxHLN98

[bcbm]

^Yes, but you seem to . . . happen.

i think dada was attacking the idea of professional artists in a socialist society.

[black magick hustla]

^Yes, but you seem to be suggesting that in order to play guitar, you must be some sort of bourgeois. I work fulltime, I don't have any college education, I pay rent, I come from a working class family, and... wait for it.... I play guitar (and banjo, mandolin, ukulele, and harmonica :p). Just because someone plays music hardly means they must be some sort of bourgeois University physics student ;)
If you are familiar with the history of blues and folk music in the US, it has very proletarian roots, as do many kinds of music. Most of my friends and my room mates are working class, and most of them play music. But the same goes for art as for music: lessons cost money, instruments are quite pricey, time is very limited. And anecdotally, if I'd had to take lessons, I'd never have bothered - the same goes for art. So working class people are much more limited by their natural abilities with respect to the arts; the opportunity to learn it is generally not there, so if it isn't a natural talent, it is unlikely to happen.

i am not attacking the idea of doing art, but "living off" art in a socialist society. again, i wont hammer the nails ofyour courtyard while you fuckin paint canvas and do nothing else

[9]

Yes, I agree with that; sorry for the misunderstanding.

[black magick hustla]

i also want to comment on something else. it is pretty common between people who fancy themselves sensitive, artistic, and educated to hiss at the hordes of "ignorant" people for lacking a sort of appreciation for the "arts". ive seen it a few times.

i will tell you this gentlemen. y'all can fuck yourself and burn with your artistic sensibilities.

[blake 3:17]

Not true, in terms of music john cage wrote one of the most challenging pieces of art music with nothing more than 4 mins and 33 seconds of silence. Time yes, material resources, not really.

Yeah, he wrote it when he wasn't in the coal mine... I think Cage had a fair bit of free time. And where did those prepared pianos come from?

[Robocommie]

But this doesn't mean that past art is abolished or unimportant. Do we get rid of all bourgeois science just because it was developed in an unequal system and often through the profit motive? No if it's good then we should use it and learn from it and enjoy it. Feudal, Classical, Bourgeois art will still be "valuable" to future societies and worth studying and learning from and simply enjoying. In addition, when art is freed from being an investment for capitalists, we will be able to more fully judge art by it's aesthetic, historical, or technical merits.

One of the few things that bother me about a lot of revolutionaries is the "book burning" impulse that some people have. When Shi Huangdi became emperor of a unified China, he burned all the old texts to eliminate the idea of a world before China, to strengthen his rule. I don't understand why so many revolutionaries have wished to repeat this same act with architecture, books, art objects. It's anti-intellectual in the extreme.

It's like the Taliban blowing up the old stone Buddhas of Bamiyan. They were 1500 years old, ffs. That's part of the human story.

[CELMX]

i am not attacking the idea of doing art, but "living off" art in a socialist society. again, i wont hammer the nails ofyour courtyard while you fuckin paint canvas and do nothing else

Are you saying that people shouldn't be writers as a "job"? Dancers, entertainers, actors, etc.?
It's not just "fuckin paint canvas," art is a form of inspiration, a form of expressing opinion and maybe even informing people. In my opinion, artists, and for that matter, anyone else, is not only going to be doing what they like. People will share the highly unpopular tasks, like cleaning for example.
And, if you don't want to "hammer the nails of your courtyard", then don't!! No one's gonna stop you! If you don't like it, then either someone else who likes it will take over, or people will share this unpleasant task.

In a socialist society, you don't have to "live off" of anything. You just do whatever you like, but at the same time, share unpleasant tasks, which i mentioned earlier.

If you think all art is just dilly dally, you are wrong! It takes a lot of effort to be a skilled artist that can provide useful information, chunks of history, inspiration to future or present generations. Art is applicable to almost any field.

And, if you think people should "live off" of jobs, then art would still be a very necessary field. For the above reasons I mentioned, and, well, it'll make our society much less boring! I mean, come on, I think everyone wants to live in a more colorful, rich society (exept for maoists lol)

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

As long as there are enough workers, being productive enough, to produce an abundance of basic and normal goods, then I don't see there being a problem with people making a living via the making and showcasing of art. This is probably a somewhat subjective discussion. As a pianist myself, I understand it to be an art form. To somebody else though, they may not see it as such, but as something which is not directly related to the betterment of a Socialist society.

As I have said previously, culture is important. Culture cannot be planned for or forced into being, it must be allowed to evolve organically. Henceforth, if the arts were to be downgraded to a wageless 'annoyance', or something to be done in the privacy of the home, society would suffer, and it would be difficult to re-establish art as a form.

[Robocommie]

Part of this is why I'm still debating in my mind the value of currency even in a post-capitalist world. When it's no longer used as a coercive tool, by way of equalizing measures taken by the collective, then currency can become a sort of democratic marker of value.

Like, take street buskers. They're artists who operate almost completely out of the capitalist mode, and the support they receive is wholly elective. Every dime or quarter or dollar they're thrown is a sort of vote in favor of his continued performance as an artist. If people get sick of him, that support dries up and he'd better find another way of contributing to the collective.

But the recording industry, the publishing industry, the film industry, for the most part these are parasitic organizations of capital which are sucking profit from the work of artists, and by doing so, increase the cost of media for the consumption of everyone else. I feel marketing, packaging, distributing, could all be done on socialist lines for a much more egalitarian effect, especially with the rise of P2P software and the ability to publish on demand.

[cenv]

It's important to remember that art, like everything else in capitalism, is a system of relationships, not a "thing." It's an isolated sphere in which a select few "professional artists" are chosen to produce commodities that can be presented as objectified human creativity through museums, galleries, and concert halls, and gawked at by the educated upper classes and the uncreative masses. Art under capitalism is integrated into the bourgeois economic structure, and the artistic spectacle is rooted in an unspoken but omnipresent principle: when art ceases to be a commodity, it ceases to be art. An interesting example of the way art under capitalism is inseparable from its status as a commodity is the story about Joshua Bell playing music at the metro station (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html).

Revolution would liberate art from the shackles of compartmentalization and commodification. People would be able to rediscover their human creativity, and creative expression would cease to be the luxury of a select few. The system of commodified art would crumble, and human creativity would supersede the cold rationalism and dehumanizing logic of capitalism. Art would cease to be the exclusive property of artistic specialists.

So when I say we need to abolish art, I'm not saying we should burn books, pour the paint into the rivers, tear our canvases into shreds, or scratch our CDs with nails. I'm saying we should free it from the nonnegotiable logic of capitalism. If you want to call post-revolutionary creative expression "art," go ahead, but it will be radically different, more universal, and more human than the "art" dominated by separation and alienation.

Of course, some maintain that there will still be "professional artists" in a communist society. If there are professional artists, this implies the existence of amateur artists. This begs the question: how will one distinguish between professional artists and amateur artists?

Also, for the record, we need to be careful about distinguishing between activities that are "productive" and "useful," since this delimitation reeks of the economic rationalism of capitalism and also tends to be completely arbitrary.


Part of this is why I'm still debating in my mind the value of currency even in a post-capitalist world. When it's no longer used as a coercive tool, by way of equalizing measures taken by the collective, then currency can become a sort of democratic marker of value.
Unfortunately, capitalists also claim that currency is a "democratic marker of value," but in an ironic reversal of the bourgeois criticism of communism, this is true in theory but not in practice. How can you base a society on money without paving the way for coersion, hierarchy, class society, separation, and alienation?

[Robocommie]

Unfortunately, capitalists also claim that currency is a "democratic marker of value," but in an ironic reversal of the bourgeois criticism of communism, this is true in theory but not in practice. How can you base a society on money without paving the way for coersion, hierarchy, class society, separation, and alienation?

Well, as my thinking has been so far, by introducing mechanisms that level the playing field. Eliminate the wage system by having production controlled by worker's cooperatives, with utilities like water, power, and all other essential material needs of life being provided by a collectively empowered government. These markers of value become undemocratic because they are distributed in an undemocratic way.

I think the main thing is, I'd be willing to shed this idea of currency, but I've yet to hear anyone explain with any kind of detail how goods might be distributed in a moneyless society. Who decides what gets made, and who decides how much? Then, how do we ensure that everyone gets what they need? How do we ensure nobody gets too much at the expense of others?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

It's important to remember that art, like everything else in capitalism, is a system of relationships, not a "thing." It's an isolated sphere in which a select few "professional artists" are chosen to produce commodities that can be presented as objectified human creativity through museums, galleries, and concert halls, and gawked at by the educated upper classes and the uncreative masses. Art under capitalism is integrated into the bourgeois economic structure, and the artistic spectacle is rooted in an unspoken but omnipresent principle: when art ceases to be a commodity, it ceases to be art. An interesting example of the way art under capitalism is inseparable from its status as a commodity is the story about Joshua Bell playing music at the metro station (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html).

Revolution would liberate art from the shackles of compartmentalization and commodification. People would be able to rediscover their human creativity, and creative expression would cease to be the luxury of a select few. The system of commodified art would crumble, and human creativity would supersede the cold rationalism and dehumanizing logic of capitalism. Art would cease to be the exclusive property of artistic specialists.

So when I say we need to abolish art, I'm not saying we should burn books, pour the paint into the rivers, tear our canvases into shreds, or scratch our CDs with nails. I'm saying we should free it from the nonnegotiable logic of capitalism. If you want to call post-revolutionary creative expression "art," go ahead, but it will be radically different, more universal, and more human than the "art" dominated by separation and alienation.

Of course, some maintain that there will still be "professional artists" in a communist society. If there are professional artists, this implies the existence of amateur artists. This begs the question: how will one distinguish between professional artists and amateur artists?

Also, for the record, we need to be careful about distinguishing between activities that are "productive" and "useful," since this delimitation reeks of the economic rationalism of capitalism and also tends to be completely arbitrary.


Unfortunately, capitalists also claim that currency is a "democratic marker of value," but in an ironic reversal of the bourgeois criticism of communism, this is true in theory but not in practice. How can you base a society on money without paving the way for coersion, hierarchy, class society, separation, and alienation?

Must you compartmentalise art as something which needs to be directed and controlled?

You ask how we separate the professional from the amateur. That is quite simple. The better artists are professionals, they play in the big halls, the amateur contently plays to smaller audiences.

Obviously, 'art' has been distorted in the public eye by the existence of reality 'talent' shows, which of course place saleability and potential profit takings above actual talent. However, if you were to delve into the world of classical music, for example, you would see a thriving community - a real community - where money is irrelevant largely, and reputation and prestige are earned by word of mouth. It is a very healthy state of affairs, and the most organic way of doing things.

[cenv]

Robocommie,

I think the main thing is, I'd be willing to shed this idea of currency, but I've yet to hear anyone explain with any kind of detail how goods might be distributed in a moneyless society. Who decides what gets made, and who decides how much? Then, how do we ensure that everyone gets what they need? How do we ensure nobody gets too much at the expense of others?Fair enough. But I don't think we can expect to map out a post-revolutionary society in detail when revolution doesn't even seem to be on the horizon yet. We can talk about energy accounting, labor-time vouchers, ParEcon, distribution using computer networks, gift economies, and so on, but it's impossible to foresee the material conditions under which the revolution will take place. Of course, we have to be careful not to use this argument as a cop-out, but I don't think falling back onto money is the right approach, and I contest the idea that it's possible to "level the playing field" -- no matter how many times we try to level it, money will undo our best efforts. Personally, I'm in favor of leveraging the Internet and communications technology to coordinate distribution/production and balance supply/demand, and I see money as a relic of capitalism from a less connected, less productively and technologically capable world.

DemSoc,

Must you compartmentalise art as something which needs to be directed and controlled?I'm not sure how you got that out of my post. I'm advocating exactly the opposite.


You ask how we separate the professional from the amateur. That is quite simple. The better artists are professionals, they play in the big halls, the amateur contently plays to smaller audiences.But materially, what would be the difference between a professional and an amateur artist in a post-revolutionary society, and how would you decide who was worthy of being the former?


Obviously, 'art' has been distorted in the public eye by the existence of reality 'talent' shows, which of course place saleability and potential profit takings above actual talent. However, if you were to delve into the world of classical music, for example, you would see a thriving community - a real community - where money is irrelevant largely, and reputation and prestige are earned by word of mouth. It is a very healthy state of affairs, and the most organic way of doing things.Actually, I have delved into the world of classical music -- kudos for bringing it up, since a lot of communists avoid it like the plague :P . (I've played violin for a decade, and I write classical music.) I love classical music (and music in general), but I also admit that it's an isolated, specialized sphere that is not at all independent of economic forces, commodification, and spectacular relations. As with other spheres of alienated production under capitalism, content becomes subservient to form -- again, the article I linked to on Joshua Bell is an interesting demonstration of this. Creative human impulses are often subordinated to the static image produced by artistic reification and the dominant paradigm of musical production. And what you call reputation, prestige, and word of mouth often turns into connections, internal politics, luck, and how many opportunities an individual's wealth affords him/her.

Finally, I'd urge anyone who denies that the model of musical production is a result of capitalist relations to ask themselves two questions:

Why do we think of concert halls as being the exclusive sites of the production of "great" music?

and

In general, who becomes a professional artist, and why?

These are complicated questions, but the implications are interesting to think about.

[Robocommie]

Robocommie,
Fair enough. But I don't think we can expect to map out a post-revolutionary society in detail when revolution doesn't even seem to be on the horizon yet. We can talk about energy accounting, labor-time vouchers, ParEcon, distribution using computer networks, gift economies, and so on, but it's impossible to foresee the material conditions under which the revolution will take place. Of course, we have to be careful not to use this argument as a cop-out, but I don't think falling back onto money is the right approach, and I contest the idea that it's possible to "level the playing field" -- no matter how many times we try to level it, money will undo our best efforts. Personally, I'm in favor of leveraging the Internet and communications technology to coordinate distribution/production and balance supply/demand, and I see money as a relic of capitalism from a less connected, less productively and technologically capable world.

Maybe... but I'm not sure it's a good idea to set forth in tearing down the old corrupt order unless we have a very good picture of what we're going to replace it with. After all, most of the discussions I've had with friends on the subject of socialism comes down to an uncertainty of just how the fine details of distribution gets worked out. If I had an answer, I think my discussions would be a lot more persuasive. Right now, most of my studies are actually oriented not on matters of airy fairy philosophy of dialectics or top-down socialism vs bottom up, but on what Che Guevara once referred to as "dry economics." And as yet, I'm not really convinced that the use of currency is an inherently unjust system. I have a link to a BBC video article someone posted here about the last Maoist commune left in China, and the workers there are issued something like 30 vouchers every month that can be exchanged for goods. But isn't something like that, or labor vouchers, just another form of currency?

[Robocommie]

Why do we think of concert halls as being the exclusive sites of the production of "great" music?


Oh, I don't, not at all. I think some of the best music in the world is performed on street corners or in poor villages around the globe. And I say that as a fan of Vivaldi.

[black magick hustla]

you cannot make a living out of "making culture". that is the ultimate act of the division of labor and as such, its nothing more than alienated art and corpses in people's mouths

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Cenv,

Good to see a fellow musician. I've been a pianist since I was 5. Nearly went down the professional route, but 7-10 hours solitary confinement a day didn't appeal to me:D

Perhaps we have had different experiences. My teachers are from Russia, and they have many friends in Germany, where i've visited on numerous occasions, and i've found that there was little internal politics involved. Generally, those who were good got more exposure - not in big concert halls, but in regional concerts, I was lucky enough to be one of these people on a couple of occasions, and unlucky enough not to be on a few more.

I agree that there is always the potential for a Simon Cowell-type to come along and 'manufacture' some talent, which obviously has groteque economic implications in terms of unfair profits being turned, not to mention unnecessary advertising and marketing. However, I don't really believe that this is such a widespread phenomena in classical music. I mean yes, a couple of people (i'll highlight Lang Lang here) have probably gotten more exposure than they deserve, but you have to remember that the man is still highly, highly talented. It is not like one of these idiots on television reality shows who have no talent yet get to number one because of these Cowellite 'moguls.'

Thinking a bit more, Cenv, i'm not sure that there is a perfect division between a professional and an amateur artist. I mean, I guess that, technically, one becomes a professional when they have a studio recording released and sold in the shops. However, let me give you an example. I know a pianist, a particularly good one, through my piano teacher. She has only had a couple of CDs ever released - Rachmaninov. Indeed, her CD of the 3rd Concerto was well received. However, she has not had a prolific recording career. Is she a professional or an amateur?

Perhaps a system could work as follows:

All those who choose to go down the 'artist' route (let us take Classical Music as our subject for now), get a small level of government grant for performance costs and generally to stop them going below the living subsistence level. They then get (from a government social fund, let us say) an arbitrary payment for every CD they produce per year. A ceiling on the potential number of CDs they can release is initiated, so that they must in fact, let us say, spend a percentage of their time working, for a wage, on something that is 'economically productive.'

[cenv]

Robocommie,


And as yet, I'm not really convinced that the use of currency is an inherently unjust system. I have a link to a BBC video article someone posted here about the last Maoist commune left in China, and the workers there are issued something like 30 vouchers every month that can be exchanged for goods. But isn't something like that, or labor vouchers, just another form of currency?
Technically, you could lump these different forms of distribution under the "currency" umbrella. But there's two attributes we should keep in mind when thinking about currency:

1) Can it only be exchanged for goods by the person to whom it's issued, and does it "disappear" once it's exchanged for goods? Or can it be reused, given away, etc?

2) On what basis is this "currency" distributed? Is it handed out equally like in the commune you bring up, or is it a function of labor time, or is it distributed according to an arbitrary scale of how much different work is "worthy"?

So yeah, "currency" is a broad term, but everyday life in an economic system rooted in a reusable, unevenly distributed currency will be profoundly different than life in a society based on equally distributed "currency" that remains attached to its possessor and is only good for one-time use.

DemSoc,


Good to see a fellow musician. I've been a pianist since I was 5. Nearly went down the professional route, but 7-10 hours solitary confinement a day didn't appeal to mehttp://www.revleft.com/vb/../revleft/smilies/biggrin.gif
I know what you mean... it's funny how some people think being a musician is glamorous and exciting. :lol:


Perhaps we have had different experiences. My teachers are from Russia, and they have many friends in Germany, where i've visited on numerous occasions, and i've found that there was little internal politics involved. Generally, those who were good got more exposure - not in big concert halls, but in regional concerts, I was lucky enough to be one of these people on a couple of occasions, and unlucky enough not to be on a few more.

I agree that there is always the potential for a Simon Cowell-type to come along and 'manufacture' some talent, which obviously has groteque economic implications in terms of unfair profits being turned, not to mention unnecessary advertising and marketing. However, I don't really believe that this is such a widespread phenomena in classical music. I mean yes, a couple of people (i'll highlight Lang Lang here) have probably gotten more exposure than they deserve, but you have to remember that the man is still highly, highly talented. It is not like one of these idiots on television reality shows who have no talent yet get to number one because of these Cowellite 'moguls.'
I see where you're coming from, and I think a lot of this might have to do with the fact that classical music has become marginalized in the context of contemporary art / society.

But I think it's dangerous to judge whether people "deserve" to be artists. In fact, I see this attitude as a reflection of the capitalist ethic that insists on placing external "success" in a moral context and establishing a connection between personal qualities and economic attributes. It also reinforces the idea of art as an isolated sphere of activity instead of something that can become universal. However, I agree with what you're saying about "manufacturing talent" and the way bourgeois media / advertising / etc. has impoverished artistic content.

On the other hand, a lot of your points rely on the idea of "talent." I feel like we have a tendency to abstract talent and think of it as an inherent personal quality independent of economic context. But the truth is that how "talented" someone is depends on whether they're able to study music in the first place, as well as who they can study with and how seriously they can study it. History is no doubt full of people who had the potential to be the next Rubinstein or Heifetz but who never had a music lesson in their lives. "Talent" isn't independent of economic forces.

Tying this back to art in a post-revolutionary society, it's easy to see that proletarian revolution would inevitably help a lot of these problems, since people's opportunities would (hopefully) no longer be limited by economic constraints. But it would be naive to assume that we could fix all these problems by establishing socialism / communism without confronting the artistic forms and modes of artistic expression created by capitalism. Which is why we need to eliminate art as a separate sphere of activity...


Thinking a bit more, Cenv, i'm not sure that there is a perfect division between a professional and an amateur artist. I mean, I guess that, technically, one becomes a professional when they have a studio recording released and sold in the shops. However, let me give you an example. I know a pianist, a particularly good one, through my piano teacher. She has only had a couple of CDs ever released - Rachmaninov. Indeed, her CD of the 3rd Concerto was well received. However, she has not had a prolific recording career. Is she a professional or an amateur?
I was taking "professional artist" to mean anyone who lives off of art, i.e. anyone who does primarily art as their work.


All those who choose to go down the 'artist' route (let us take Classical Music as our subject for now), get a small level of government grant for performance costs and generally to stop them going below the living subsistence level. They then get (from a government social fund, let us say) an arbitrary payment for every CD they produce per year. A ceiling on the potential number of CDs they can release is initiated, so that they must in fact, let us say, spend a percentage of their time working, for a wage, on something that is 'economically productive.'
Well, I'm against keeping money around after the revolution, but that's beyond the scope of this discussion. :P

My biggest question about the system you're suggesting is this: if artists have to do non-artistic work, what's the difference between artists who do work when they're not making art, and workers who make art when they're not doing work? Wouldn't it be better to eliminate the category of "professional artist" entirely by saying that everyone works and everyone has the opportunity to be artistically engaged? So instead of asking people to "choose to go down the 'artist' route," that route would cease to exist and art could become a part of life instead of an isolated sphere of activity.