I would say it’s not possible. The art IS the artist. The art only is what it is because the artist is who they are. But a lot of people seem to be very comfortable with the idea of separating the art from the artist. What say Lemmy?
Depends on the context surrounding the art and whether enjoying said art is directly funding the artist’s problematic views. Someone enjoying a Lovecraft story isn’t doing shit for him. No one’s views on race are going to change from stumbling upon his cat’s name either. Whereas someone buying a Harry Potter product is directly funding trans people’s deaths. However, buying a Harry Potter book secondhand is supporting local business (though I will still judge you for shitty taste and for promoting the franchise)
Context matters a lot.
It does matters who did/does the art. That’s only possible if you can separate the two. Art can be copied and has been since forever. People value the same art from different artists differently. It’s not the art itself that carries the value. If the painting of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre turned out to be a facsimile for display, it’s identical in every way, would the people enjoy it less? Say that it isn’t ‘real’ even though it is right there in front of their eyes? Would that facsimile be worth the same? Clearly people aren’t just interested in what the art is, but who made it. We believe that the artist puts meaning and intent in the art, but these aren’t in the art itself. For most of the art we experience that is completely unavailable to us. There is clearly a distinction between our experience of art and our experience of art from the ‘original’ artist. So while knowing who made what and why adds value to art, it isn’t necessary to experience and enjoy this art.
It is completely conceivable that someone feels attracted to the aesthetics of art whilst fully ignorant about the artist. The artist can’t control someones emotions, thoughts and feelings. It’s not the artist who decided what aesthetics evolved adter millions of years of human evolution, conditioning, culture. An artist can only hope to align themselves to it and hope people agree on it. And so good art can elicit all the right feelings even when nothing is known about the. artist.
this is the best thing I have ever read on the subject: https://www.theredhandfiles.com/should-we-separate-the-artist-from-the-art/
Of course it’s possible. I can enjoy any art without knowing or caring what the artist does or thinks. I can listen to music or read books by people who might well be assholes, but even if I knew they were and I enjoyed what they did, I likely wouldn’t care.
The art is not the artist. You may not want to support an artist based on whatever they have said or done, that’s all fine and good, but only really applies to current artists.
Art won’t stop being art and such pieces that are enjoyable won’t stop being enjoyable. Also people are complicated, they might be a piece of shit, and still have opinions that are worth listening to, or capable of creating something that is a positive influence.
Consider some old art examples, might be a concert piece, or a painting, a sculpture… Think about the artists. Depending on the time and society they lived in, they could have easily been racist, homophobic, sexist… If they had twitter back then we could probably have plenty of reasons to hate them. There’s plenty of art pieces that have been a positive influence to me in my past, and nowadays we unfortunately know how horrible some of the artists involved were. This happens more with current artists because now it’s easier to publish your shitty ideas in a public forum without the option to shut everyone’s mouths.
Some examples, Harry Potter was a huge influence to me and many around me, it was a positive influence that created a more inclusive point of view on us, it’s a pity the author is a piece of crap now, but the art still remains as a positive influence for many. Basically all works by Joss Whedon have been amazing in my opinion and his female characters have usually been some of the best examples of what good writing can be, alas he seems to be abusive and an ass to many people he has worked with. Neil Gaiman is another example, such a brilliant mind capable of creating incredible characters and stories and he is a piece of shit. Yet their art might actually have helped so many people that needed it. No matter what many might say, it’s never so clear cut when it comes to people.
Struggle with it.
Most folks in this thread are taking about paintings.
What about actors, singers and comedians where the art is so much of their persona?
For the longest time I was completely oblivious to what Roman Polanski did and I revered Chinatown.
I still think it is an incredible movie, but when I learn that Polanski drugged and raped a little kid…. After he attempted to do it once and Angelica Houston stopped him.
I used to listen to Bill Cosby records as a kid and holy shit the Chicken Heart routine still makes me giggle when I remember parts of it.
Then all the heinous shit he did has come out and I just struggle with how to handle it.
Another aspect I struggle with should I victimize all the artists involved because of the actions of one of them.
Take Harvey Weinstein. He was horrible. He was basically torturing people. He was a sexual terrorist.
Unfortunately Miramax and later The Weinstein Company made some of the greatest movies. Should I boycott all of them?
I do not have a good answer.
And then let’s take it down to something a lot less EVIL.
I used to revere Paul Newman. I used to think his long time marriage to Joanne Woodward was a thing of beauty and I guess it was. Then I learned about how he basically abandoned his first wife and three kids after she has spend years funding his life as actor before his career took off.
I list a number of his movies as some of the greatest of all time and a number of his performances as some of the greatest of all time and I love them to this day.
How do I reconcile that with the above.
In a world as overflowing with art as this, it’s worth conflating the art and the artist.
Every work of art produced by a bad person is one produced by a good (or more likely, morally ambiguous) person you don’t.
You can. I can enjoy Hitler’s paintings because they contains no nazism, even if a nazist mind produced them (you could argue that in his youth he was not yet a nazi, but that still doesn’t matter).
Heck, I’m going even further and say that even if a form of art posses some inheritely bad aspect, you can still separate it from other artistic characteristics.
Let’s say Hitler did a panting of a gas chamber killing people in a death camp, but is painted in such a skillfull and technically relevant way to be revolutionary in the art, then it’s ok if people like it (technically), it’s ok if it’s owned and hang in a museum, even if it depicts real, evil and needless suffering. You can approcciate something technically or artistically without having to embrace the ideals it represents. And it’s important to not cancel things just because bad people did it, because remembering is important.
As for modern bad artist, it’s more complicated because you might not want to financially support an artist who is a criminal/terrible person, but that still doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate their art.
I think the first problem is art is so broad we shouldn’t be making generalized sweeping statements. One piece of art might be made by someone and it is its own object, e.g. an unrelated painting of a landscape.Whatever that person has done doesn’t change what it is or what it represents. Perhaps that art doesn’t deserve to be shared or promoted in a way that benefits the artist though.
On the other hand, some art like a film that has so much of the artist in it, can’t stand on its own as much. It’s harder to separate them. It’s ok to enjoy the film but still not share or promote it in any way that benefits the artist. We should be ok with having mixed feelings about it.
As with complex topics, it’s really a grey area, there’s no 1 rule.
That last point is why I pirate all my Kanye
you can try but if someone is awful you’ll probably find that awfulness reflected in the art too.
Separate, no, not completely.
I’m very “Death of he Artist”, though, and think that the artist gets no special say in what the art is about once it’s complete. So yes, I still listen to and enjoy songs by The Mamas and the Papas and most songs by Ace of Base despite the reprehensible qualities of those artists, because the former didn’t write songs about sexual abuse and the most of the letter’s songs aren’t tinged by white supremacy.
But knowing what I do about them now, I definitely cast a critical eye over their catalogs, and of course I’ll never pay for anything by Ace of Base ever again.
I tried but he got mad and chased me down the hall yelling “give me back my stuff, you filthy animal!” 🖼️ 🦝 💨 🤬
I see this discussion a lot with a lot of compelling arguments for either take. over time, this has become my take. it will be bad but hear me out.
depriving bad people of money for their work is good. but enjoying good work from bad people is important. if you don’t want to pay them then don’t, but don’t deprive yourself of art and education based on moral standards that (since we’re being honest) will always be in flux as you change and grow. decentralize moral purity from your personal journey. centralize making informed decisions and embracing complexity.
it’s a bad take but honestly I really don’t like the concept of trying to be a good person as it pertains to consumption. there really isn’t such a thing as good consumption. and in my thirties I’m pretty okay with whatever criticism that earns me.
I fully agree with your take regarding art but for different reasons apparently. I do think your way of approaching this makes you a good person. Specifically because you are willing to consume the art of a ‘bad’ person just because of the chance they make something good. It shows you’re trying to build an inclusive community, even if you disagree with someone. So it makes me wonder, why do you think being a good person ‘pertains to’ (forces?) consumption?
Again, I agree that there is no good consumption (in the capitalist sense). But I can absolutely see good deeds one can do without even getting close to consuming resources. An example would be holding the door open for the person behind you. Or am I misunderstanding you somehow?
You’re not misunderstanding at all. You actually took what I was saying even a step further, so thank you for asking. I was using some reductive language to avoid making it over complex or sounding pretentious. I spoke of it in terms of “being a good person” because I think this conversation is at heart distillation of the problems of consumption and our self perceptions. Like, it’s about morality too but that part is easier settled by just not giving problematic artists our resources.
So for the meat of it, when we’re talking about whether it’s okay to consume art from “bad people” I think what we’re trying to discover is if doing so makes us bad. and like, it possibly can but not intentionally and not if we do it critically. and also the quality that I’m referring to as bad isn’t actually a binary. it’s actually an expansive amount of values on their own individual spectrums that we should be analyzing and keeping in our mind while we participate in the art. from there we can broaden our concepts of good and bad or problematic/unproblematic and actually use that awareness to prevent some harm.
I said doing this makes me a bad person because I assume most people I interact with have all-or-nothing morality and I don’t think it will change. I find it easier to just live with the base assumption that I’m a problem and not wait for people tell me who I am but that’s probably trauma talking. I probably should be examining that.
But anyway yes, you’re right. But I’d call most good deeds that can be done as acts of creation. Like creating feelings of respect and ease of life by holding a door for someone.
Only purity-testers have difficulty with this.
Imagine saying Alice In Wonderland isn’t good.
Besides, to condemn the art because you condemn the artist, you’d have to be playing the game of giving absolute moral condemnations of people in the first place. That’s a mug’s game. Everybody’s got good and bad in them.
Depends what the artist did and when they did it as well as the conection to the art.
The internet really likes to forget that people and their believes change over time. You don’t have the same believes you had at 14 when you are 30 or 40.
So you could be a biggot and racist as a teen because you grew up in a home in which this was normal. Mybe you later get to know people you had prejudiced against before and are now in your 30’s/40s an ally.
You could also be chill growing up and than for some reasons, fall pray to the right wing propaganda machine and become an anti-woke poopy-head.
So in my opinion, the time when the art was created plays a huge impact on how I see it and if I can separate it from the artist.
Yes.
Even if it’s something current, I can enjoy the work and just not pay for it.
