A drawn out response to Mopfog
Dear Mopfog:
You know, I really don't think there's such a thing as "bad art." People pass that term around a lot. I remember when some guy put a crucifix in a jar of piss, took a picture of it and put it up in the Australian National Art Museum as "Piss Christ"--and people said, "but is it art?" I had this very argument going on the Call of Cthulhu list serve with the head librarian from UC Berkeley before we were kindly told to take our argument elsewhere.
His argument was that it WAS art, but that it wasn't good art. My argument is: if it isn't good than it isn't art. I'll be honest, Mop ol' bean, you say that our society doesn't value creative types. I couldn't disagree more. If creative types aren't valued, then why does every one think they are one? Have you seen the movie "She's all that"--perfect example, the Soccer player aint shit until he can do performance art with a hacky sack.
I think closer to the truth is that our society values creative types to the point that if you aren't one, you should consider yourself soulless. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't society is willing to fund all these creative types, but then, should they? Should they give every kid who thinks they can write poetry a grant. I buy a lot of books. A LOT. Should I buy every 19 year-olds chapbook.
Note, I used to do Slam Poetry. That's where the name Monstro comes from. Why did I stop? Because I read Wallace Stevens and realized that I wasn't a very good poet. No big whoop.
Because my wife is a playwright, I see a lot of plays. 99% of them don't have plots, character development, anything. There a grab bag of crap splashed up on the stage. Am I talking horrible plays written by Northamptonites essentially up on their soap box about being gay? Yeah. I'm also talking about Stone In My Pocket which I think won a Tony or something. It was f'ing horrible.
Why? Why does every 19 year old think they're a poet. Why? I'll tell you--it's because we're all told that we're creative. We all harbor the fantasy that within us is an Ionesco, a Picasso, a Pynchon, a Liebowitz, etc.. Maybe Kinkade just figured out that all he had in him was a Kinkade. The truth is that quite a few of us have no talent at all. The problem is that those of us with talent look out and count these talentless people among our peers and we say, "look at all the people who are unappreciated for their art." I say good. They need day jobs. Maybe I do too, I don't know. Ultimately, the only way to prove yourself, to seperate yourself up is to keep showing your stuff to people and to finally get acknowledged. If this happens, then you are an artist, and what you make is art. If it doesn't, then you are not an artist. Sorry.
Good news though, society is full of shit, and not everyone has to be an artist. What's more, even if you are never truly an artist, it isn't like art can't have power in your life. Even the attempt to make art (an attempt that, for some, may be doomed to failure) is an expansion of self awareness. Dollar signs come or they don't come. Nothing depends on that. If art depended on dollars than 99% of what you know as art wouldn't be art. Kinkade and Rawlings are both bad examples. Sorry Blowing Shit Up, but had to be said as well. Art is not based on mass appeal (that's propoganda). Look how far we've come from the rennaissance. We now believe that the masses should determine what is art, whereas before it was people who had been trained in art and who were thought to have refined taste. Shit, is Jerry Bruckheimer art.
Fuck no.
Now the retort to my argument: "Well, what about computer art. There's a lot of it out there. There's a lot of it that's good, but people don't take it seriously because of the medium." Geez, join the club. My art is scenery for miniaturized wargames, how seriously do you think people take that medium? I don't know what to say that to this retort. There isn't the level of aesthetic expertise to differentiate good computer art from bad computer art. I think the computer artists of right now are being sacrificed to the aesthetic machine that will one day produce computer art critics, but not now, not yet. The genre is too new (compare the length of time people have been doing computer art to painting and you'll see what I mean). As far as I'm concerned almost all computer art looks really good, I couldn't do any of it, and if someone asked me to pick the best of it, I would have a real hard time doing so. My assumptions are all based on modern art and cubism--computer art is neither reliant on a self created aesthetic (modern) nor intentionally inclusive all particular contexts (cubist). I know what I like, but I distrust things that I like without knowing why.
So, what? So, I'm an elitest. Sure, that's true. I'm a total art snob--we aren't even talking literature. But you know what? I'm also hopeful. You see, with all of these pretenders out there, it's a lot easier to make your first forray into the world of artists. It's a lot easier to beat out your peers when they aren't really your peers. You don't, in this cultural climate, have to arrive on the scene already a genius--you just have to be a bit better than the other people around you who are claiming some kind of artistic skill--and you have to have patience because the pretenders, more often than not, get sought out for awhile with laurels, but then they fail (because they are not artists).
You know, I really don't think there's such a thing as "bad art." People pass that term around a lot. I remember when some guy put a crucifix in a jar of piss, took a picture of it and put it up in the Australian National Art Museum as "Piss Christ"--and people said, "but is it art?" I had this very argument going on the Call of Cthulhu list serve with the head librarian from UC Berkeley before we were kindly told to take our argument elsewhere.
His argument was that it WAS art, but that it wasn't good art. My argument is: if it isn't good than it isn't art. I'll be honest, Mop ol' bean, you say that our society doesn't value creative types. I couldn't disagree more. If creative types aren't valued, then why does every one think they are one? Have you seen the movie "She's all that"--perfect example, the Soccer player aint shit until he can do performance art with a hacky sack.
I think closer to the truth is that our society values creative types to the point that if you aren't one, you should consider yourself soulless. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't society is willing to fund all these creative types, but then, should they? Should they give every kid who thinks they can write poetry a grant. I buy a lot of books. A LOT. Should I buy every 19 year-olds chapbook.
Note, I used to do Slam Poetry. That's where the name Monstro comes from. Why did I stop? Because I read Wallace Stevens and realized that I wasn't a very good poet. No big whoop.
Because my wife is a playwright, I see a lot of plays. 99% of them don't have plots, character development, anything. There a grab bag of crap splashed up on the stage. Am I talking horrible plays written by Northamptonites essentially up on their soap box about being gay? Yeah. I'm also talking about Stone In My Pocket which I think won a Tony or something. It was f'ing horrible.
Why? Why does every 19 year old think they're a poet. Why? I'll tell you--it's because we're all told that we're creative. We all harbor the fantasy that within us is an Ionesco, a Picasso, a Pynchon, a Liebowitz, etc.. Maybe Kinkade just figured out that all he had in him was a Kinkade. The truth is that quite a few of us have no talent at all. The problem is that those of us with talent look out and count these talentless people among our peers and we say, "look at all the people who are unappreciated for their art." I say good. They need day jobs. Maybe I do too, I don't know. Ultimately, the only way to prove yourself, to seperate yourself up is to keep showing your stuff to people and to finally get acknowledged. If this happens, then you are an artist, and what you make is art. If it doesn't, then you are not an artist. Sorry.
Good news though, society is full of shit, and not everyone has to be an artist. What's more, even if you are never truly an artist, it isn't like art can't have power in your life. Even the attempt to make art (an attempt that, for some, may be doomed to failure) is an expansion of self awareness. Dollar signs come or they don't come. Nothing depends on that. If art depended on dollars than 99% of what you know as art wouldn't be art. Kinkade and Rawlings are both bad examples. Sorry Blowing Shit Up, but had to be said as well. Art is not based on mass appeal (that's propoganda). Look how far we've come from the rennaissance. We now believe that the masses should determine what is art, whereas before it was people who had been trained in art and who were thought to have refined taste. Shit, is Jerry Bruckheimer art.
Fuck no.
Now the retort to my argument: "Well, what about computer art. There's a lot of it out there. There's a lot of it that's good, but people don't take it seriously because of the medium." Geez, join the club. My art is scenery for miniaturized wargames, how seriously do you think people take that medium? I don't know what to say that to this retort. There isn't the level of aesthetic expertise to differentiate good computer art from bad computer art. I think the computer artists of right now are being sacrificed to the aesthetic machine that will one day produce computer art critics, but not now, not yet. The genre is too new (compare the length of time people have been doing computer art to painting and you'll see what I mean). As far as I'm concerned almost all computer art looks really good, I couldn't do any of it, and if someone asked me to pick the best of it, I would have a real hard time doing so. My assumptions are all based on modern art and cubism--computer art is neither reliant on a self created aesthetic (modern) nor intentionally inclusive all particular contexts (cubist). I know what I like, but I distrust things that I like without knowing why.
So, what? So, I'm an elitest. Sure, that's true. I'm a total art snob--we aren't even talking literature. But you know what? I'm also hopeful. You see, with all of these pretenders out there, it's a lot easier to make your first forray into the world of artists. It's a lot easier to beat out your peers when they aren't really your peers. You don't, in this cultural climate, have to arrive on the scene already a genius--you just have to be a bit better than the other people around you who are claiming some kind of artistic skill--and you have to have patience because the pretenders, more often than not, get sought out for awhile with laurels, but then they fail (because they are not artists).
posted by Monstro D. Whale at
4:58 AM
11 Comments:
Wow. Seriously got you excited about something. So any time you're having trouble keeping up in your blog, I'll just get you riled up and you'll be good. Just kidding.
I think aesthetic, quality of construction, and a message that is sent are three aspects of art. You can even throw away the first two, but if you do you're making a statement, thus making the message the primary function of the piece. You can also have a piece that exists solely for aesthetic purposes. It would still, however, have a function. I always take the stance that art is anything produced with ones own skills, with or without intent to be functional. That said, yes, there are a lot of artists who think there is 'bad' art. If they simply take a knee-jerk approach, glance at a piece, and say,"that's bad" I would be disappointed. Certainly there are some pieces out there that merit such instantaneous responses. However, I have even caught myself on several occasions dismissing an artist's intent, the message of their piece, without fully understanding what they were pursuing. It is a delightful surprise when you find that the artist actually does have something interesting to say, and to see how they say it. However, I also believe that it is unnecessary for artists to say anything at all. For example, I currently do abstract computer graphics. I have no intent of saying anything with these pieces. I'm leaning more toward the aesthetic side of art.
There was an artist who used a stuffed goat in one of his performance pieces. In an interview years later he admitted that there'd never been any meaning injected into his arrangement of found objects. Any meaning that people took from it was a. in there own heads and b. perhaps intrinsic to the arrangement and selection of items he'd used.
'If it isn't good, then it isn't art' is a value statement. I tend to view art more as 'developed' or 'undeveloped'. The undeveloped artist has further to go in search of perfecting their craft; while they may have some skills, they don't quite manage to pull it off. The developed artist has skills, knows how to apply them, and is able to put forth a complete work of art that accomplishes the artist's goals. So in this respect, I share some of the modernist's perspective.
Then we have the post-modern 'art for arts sake' crowd. I agree partially with them as well. Their perspective is that it doesn't matter if a piece of art has meaning, because it is still art. You see it, and you know it's art.
There are several other perspectives in the art world, but I won't go into it any further. Most artists can't even agree on what makes art art.
On the issue of valuing creatives: Yes, parents value creativity greatly. Even family members, teachers, friends, etc. I suppose I should have specified 'corporate society.'
No need to buy every chapbook. The market will decide what the market can bear.
You also state that acknowledgment is the only way one becomes an artist. I disagree. Acknowledgment and critical claim are entirely unnecessary for an artist to be an artist. Perhaps somebody only realizes the brilliance of an artist's work ten thousand years later. Does that mean the artist isn't an artist until someone recognizes them as an artist? If so I'd have to say you're far off the mark. An artist is an artist by virtue of what they do, not by virtue of those who criticize them.
Acknowledgment of skills was sought by modernists and spurned by post-modernists. To effectively critique a piece, you have to know what 'school' the artist ascribes to. If the artist is modernist, then you consider the statement they are trying to make, and whether they are effectively communicating that message. If they can effectively communicate it, then they are a successful artist.
If they are a post-modernist, then the piece has not necessarily been designed with critique in mind; art for art's sake. In this case, you can critique the artist's technical skills. If there is some sort of message, you can also critique it like a modernist piece. However, if there is no message, then you cannot pass value judgment on how the artist is communicating their meaning.
Ok, I've only responded down to your 6th paragraph so far. I'll have to do the rest later.
Alright, so there are more modes of art that I didn't go into. Among these are semiotics, semantics, Freudian, Stalinist/communist, feminist, etc. In each type of artwork, the viewer has to understand the mode the artist is operating in if the criticism of the piece is going to have any meaning. A modernist critique of a semantics piece is worthless, and vice versa.
Typical communist art designed to communicate solidarity, uniformity, and nationalism has to be effective at doing so; thus, it won't necessarily have any trademarks of another artistic mode, such as modernism. The piece would share next to nothing with a post-modernist viewpoint, since the art is definitely not art for art's sake. Anyone trying to critique such a piece in a modernist mode is simply revealing that they are ignorant of the mode the piece was done in. Apples and oranges. To effectively critique the piece, one would have to ask, 'does it send the message that is intended successfully? Does it communicate the communist ideology? Is it effective in engendering that feeling that it seeks to engender?' If it successfully does these things, then it is art. Communist art, granted, but still art.
On to computer art. Computer graphics have come a long way over the past twenty years. Programs are used to manipulate the images in the same manner that a painter uses a brush. The computer is the tool of the trade.
Once again, one cannot dismiss the mode the artist is working in as irrelevant. People are taking computer graphics more seriously. However, the only people who can tell how much work went into one of these pieces are the people who have experience in the field. Thus, many teachers and art critics try to avoid computer art. This will no doubt change as the medium becomes more prevalent, which is happening even now.
One way by which computer art is judged is by assessing how much of the program's limitations are visible in the piece itself. For example, 3d applications can leave rough edges on objects created in them. Or too smooth edges in comparison to reality. Lots of 3d looks like it's plastic. This is when you know that the artist hasn't really finished their piece. It may look good, but without adding the final touches that bring the piece together, the artist is revealing the limits of their skill set. In other words, if another computer artist can look at your piece and say 'you used this program, this program, this filter, etc.,' then the piece isn't successful. It might be aesthetically pleasing, though.
There are also some artists who've focused on the limitations of a program as being the art as well. They actively seek to have the limits of the program blatantly visible. This is art as well, which makes a statement of 'here are the limits of what can be done.' So even in this case, it is still art, when the goals of the artist are realized successfully.
Bad art, contrarily, is when an artist is unsuccessful working in the mode that they are working in. Their piece does not achieve the goal they intended for it, or, lacking a goal, the piece is devoid of technical skill.
Catharsis is yet another goal of some artists. Thus, if they achieve catharsis through their work, they are successful artists. There doesn't have to be any meaning nor technical skill involved. The piece doesn't have to be aesthetic. Generally speaking, catharsis can be associated with post-modernism, although 'art for art's sake' and 'art for catharsis' sake' are nowhere near the same.
My friend, I hate to break it to you, but you are not an elitist. It sounds like you have a specific set of values you seek in a piece of art, for it to be considered art in your mind. That's fine.
However, I would caution you and anyone else about imposing your value system on other pieces of art, for by doing so you may entirely miss the perspective the artist was operating from. By missing that perspective, you could misinterpret the piece, miss the entire concept that the artist is communicating (if there is one), and may even miss out on an 'Ah! That's what the artist intended, I see it now,' moment.
At least for me, once I have that moment, then I can observe the artist's other pieces and think, 'well, I don't know how they thought that this would communicate what they are striving for, so I don't think they are successful.'
So, in conclusion, I don't think that there is really 'good art' nor 'bad art'. It is more a question, for me, of whether it is 'successful' art or 'unsuccessful.'
...and there's the problem in a nutshell. We're so sure that everyone should be artists that we've lowered the bar for art to absurdity. The question is left behind of what is art and becomes: what isn't? I mean, message+form is so broad as to include every moment of human experience since the dawn of time, but somehow even that isn't broad enough for the American art critic. Now, it's just form. If you have form, you've got art. Do you have to make the form? No: found art!
Come now, we must tighten the reigns a bit, right? I mean if art is defined in these broad a terms than you are completely wrong: art does pay--some of it anyway, because everything people do is art and some things that people do make them rich.
Criteria are required. The fact that we have no criteria is indicative of a society full of people who don't want to hear the troubling news that they aren't artists.
By the way, the artist who is not recognized as such may be an artist, but they might not be, they won't know until they are recognized. They may know that they are growing as a person through their creativity, but that's not the same.
Exactly! There is no specific set of criteria that applies to all art.
Now, when it comes to 'design,' there is a specific set of criteria, as defined by the Bauhaus during the Rennaissance (sp?). There are fundamentals of design, and criteria that classical pieces were judged by.
And yet design is but one aspect of art. It has nothing to do with content.
This is why current art criticism focuses on the mode the artist is operating in, the perspective they use, in order to effectively criticize them. Each mode has its own criteria to fulfill.
Art isn't about 'liking' a piece. A good artist isn't a good artist because people 'like' what they see. Sometimes, art is about the viewer, sometimes it isn't. Instead of thinking 'what does that piece do for me, do I like it or not' which is narcissistic, we should be thinking about what the artist intended.
But then you run into a problem which is that art is determined successful or unsuccessful inside its genre. Well, how does one make a genre? By being successful with art that lurks outside of genres. But then how can it be successful if it's aesthetics are not judged according to a standpoint (it's making that standpoint so the relationship is causal).
Here's the problem. In applying a definition to art you are bound to find just as many cases that don't fit inside that criteria as those that don't, but if you just throw up your arms and drop the criteria then quickly everything becomes art.
Note, I define literature as books that I think are worth reading. Note, the elitism. There is no other special criteria. They would all fail. I am an expert. If I say it's literature than it is literature. If I say it isn't, then it isn't. Someone may argue with me, but if they do, they better have as much expertise, and even then, they better do something to earn my respect or I will dismiss them outright...because they're wrong.
What's my criteria? Me. Could I be more specific? No, I can't. Also, if I could, I wouldn't. What makes me think that my criteria isn't ludicrous? Years and years of training, a wide ranging palate, a sample of literary experience that has never been dismissive, etc.. In other words, there are criteria for my expertise in saying when something is literature, but no criteria as to what I think is literature.
I highly doubt that any serious art critic works in any other mode, though they may not be so brazen as to admit it.
Fair enough. I agree that one cannot say all art falls entirely into one genre or another. However, if one has an understanding of the various perspectives, then one can determine which perspectives seem to have been used in a piece. It is by understanding those perspectives that one would decide on which criteria apply to any given piece, and which criteria don't apply.
Yes, one does encounter artwork that doesn't belong in any particular genre. But if one is going to create an entirely new genre, there is usually something to point to and say, 'that is the criteria by which this new genre would be defined/judged.' I agree that if there is no criteria, it opens the door to a whole mess of problems. So, for art, it can always be judged in some mode or combination thereof. The two most common aspects that casual observers look at are aesthetics and technical skill. However, if those are the only aspects that we judge, we are setting up a shallow observation. I agree that some pieces seem more like a 'work of art' than others. Sometimes the piece is executed well, and other times not so well. Sometimes we can chalk that aspect up to the experience of the artist.
I am elitist as well. There is art out there that I look at and think, 'that's horrible. It shouldn't even be considered art.' Pop art, for example, I think is garbage. I understand what the artist intended, and how they accomplished that goal, regardless of whether I like it or not. Unfortunately, it is still art.
Granted, you are the expert in the literary arena. I am still elitist when it comes to literature. Michener, for example, I think may be skillful with his descriptive prose, but what was the story about? I think Michener is garbage, only useful in literature for defining technical skill. I also think that most contemporary fiction is garbage for the simple reason that I have no interest in what they choose to talk about. On the other hand, I enjoy Vonnegut.
So we all have values. I happen to be more highly trained in the arts while you are more highly trained in literature. I agree that we can disagree on our viewpoints. :)
Monstro wrote: "the artist who is not recognized as such may be an artist, but they might not be, they won't know until they are recognized."
I disagree, particularly on the basis that many artists are not "discovered" until the end of their career.
Besides, I've hardly been recognized for shit, and I've been an artist for the bulk of my life. :)
I'll have to chime in again later when I've got time. But for now... Say what you want about Kinkade, but how can you dis the boy wizard? Like it or not, I do know a little about you personally -- specifically, the fact that you're a parent. By the time your child(ren) reach 8 or 9, you're going to be knee-deep in JK Rowling (and CS Lewis, and a few others).
Personally, I've enjoyed the Potter series -- regardless of its commercial succes and with full knowledge of most of the usual criticisms. So, just a friendly warning... it may kill you, but you're going to be sitting up nights reading that stuff aloud to hyper-attentive ears.
If someone gave me a choice: I could have either (1) a regular, off-the-shelf set of Rowling's HP series in my house my whole life or (2) an authentic Jackson Pollock painting -- but *only* one of those things and never both -- I wouldn't hesitate to select the Potter books. In the end, it's all subjective.
I do hope that no one was expecting me to say, give an inch, right? Alright, we're all friends here. Let's go over the original prompt for this:
People don't value art any more (not my argument: my argument was that people don't have money for art anymore)
synopsis: I argued against that point because I said that everybody thinks that they're an artist. Guess what? Everyone does. Now, you all are actual artists, Lynn, BSUWG--you both write extraordinarilly well. Mopfog, well, you actually ARE an artist and have been for the entire time I've known you (Mopfog and I are old pals from the college days). So, it's not great support for my argument, but it totally denies yours. Say one negative thing about art (or any subject thus pertaining) and they will come from everywhere to comment. If that's not a general level of care about art I don't know what it is.
Next argument: the judgement of the aesthetics of art are a product of a carefully trained up intution concerning often unnamable qualities (not only genre, not only message, but also a million other things to which there is no name)
Support: I can't really offer this as support because it isn't conclusive (inductive rather than deductive reasoning here), but the fact that I can shoot down everyone's ideas about what makes art with a few sentences is indicative of the fact that these ideas are either not strong or complete.
Third argument: one can only talk about things as art that are publicly acknowledged as such.
Comment: This was my attempt to get the mechanic who thinks of himself as an artist out of the picture.
Support: This seems to be my most hotly contested argument. J.K. Rawlings isn't considered literature, boo hoo. Doesn't mean it's not great child entertainment (my friend Emily has delivered papers at two Harry Potter conferences, let's hope she's not reading this blog or I'd be in trouble....). The person sitting in their attic writing the greatest poetry the world has never seen is a writer of poems not a poet. Why? Aristotle: Art should entertain and inform. Who is it entertaining? Who is it informing? Samuel Johnson: "Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth" How do they know it's true if they don't show it someone else.
Simple point of fact, if we are talking about using such people as examples of what makes or does not make something art, then they are bad examples. We don't know what they're making because they make it in solitude.
I'm writing a novel in just such a situation. Let me ask you, what do you think of it? Isn't it good? What do you think it does in terms of social criticism or genre busting? See, it's not that I've not considered these people because I'm a big jerk but because considering them is impossible.
Art needs an audience, and it needs an audience that thinks of it as art. Without the audience the work may be well crafted but it cannot do what art should do, even if it does something else. Maybe in a thousand years the world will agree with my mechanic that his work is art, but as for now, I only care whether he can get my car running again. Obviously, Rawlings is a little harder to deal with, as is Kinkade, since they are both on the borderline of definition. However, for those points, refer back to argument #1.
Sorry, I meant argument #2. By the way, when I said Mopfog actually is an artist, I am intending this as a professional statement (he's worked as, gets money as, has filled in that blank on whatever form using the word "artist").
BTW: Rhythmball Lynn got pubished! Go to her blog and bother her to put up a link. She probably already has, come to think of it, she got up before me.
Alrighty. So point one: people do value art, but their concept of what is and isn't art sucks. Now, as far as people valuing creative types goes... maybe. If they are family members, friends, or somebody who wants to pick up a piece of your art before you actually make it big (speculators). Yes, those people 'value' creative types.
Businesses on the other hand, especially corporations, claim to value creative types. They lie. You don't get paid more for being creative. The creative person doesn't usually get the promotions. What usually happens is that the creative person's manager steals the creative ideas and passes them off as their own.
Aesthetics are partially inductive. Not entirely however. Design is the practice of achieving aesthetic, function, or both. There are rules for design, which define how relationships within a piece will work. You can think, 'why does my eye appreciate this piece of art?' and be completely mystified. However, that doesn't mean that there aren't principals of design at work that you aren't aware of. In fact there are. There are object relationships, placement of the objects in the piece, color usage, and other informed techniques of design that can be used by the artist. Some artists do operate intuitively with respect to these design principles. Most don't, and have to learn these principles. The elitist side of me would argue that those who can intuitively achieve these things are more of a natural artist.
The third argument is akin to asking if noise is made when a tree falls if nobody is around to hear it. Of course noise is made! Of course the person is an artist when nobody sees their stuff! They may not be known to be an artist, but they certainly were. Their house can burn down and nobody will ever know that they produced art, but they were still an artist. To say that art doesn't exist without the critic makes the critic somehow part of the equation. Sorry, but that is the typical narcissism of the boomer generation and has no value as an argument. If a piece of art is designed to be viewed by an audience, then it requires an audience to be successful, and fails without the audience. Not all pieces, however, are designed to be viewed by an audience. Rather, some pieces have very specific audiences.
I'm not saying that the person who thinks of themself as an artist is an artist when nobody has seen their work. For all we know, that person could be delusional, or narcissistic, or rating their skills too highly. However, they also could be an artist. So they can't be dismissed out of hand.
It doesn't matter if we know what they are making. The fact remains that there is still the possibility that they are an artist and what they've created is art, regardless of whether anyone has seen it.
The audience has lost importance as far as art and artists are concerned. Granted, the majority of art is still audience-dependent, but in, for example, post-modernism, where art is done for art's sake, the viewer is secondary, even unnecessary at times, to the art.
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