Artists who despise the audiences who love them

Cafe Society
101

If by provocative you mean provoking anger, then sure. Like I said a few posts up, making people mad is easy. Nothing especially artistically impressive about that.

If by provocative you mean provoking thought . . . not so much. I can’t think of any way to interpret the message of burning a million bucks that isn’t incredibly trite. People value money too much? Money is evil? Look how easy it is to make people outraged? Look how audacious we are?

What are they saying that’s remotely interesting? The fact that they “didn’t hurt anybody” doesn’t mean they aren’t deserving of criticism for being so incredibly wasteful. Spending a million bucks to make some truly profound artistic statement might be defensible – but what’s the profound artistic statement here?

102

I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned the creators of The Simpsons. They have always seemed rather ambivalent about their most hardcore fans. There are many moments on their commentary in which they express anger, disappointment and confusion toward those who have become obsessed with minutia of the show, and a few episodes are pretty clearly full of ‘‘FUCK YOU AUDIENCE’’ intent.

103

I don’t think that’s anywhere near as self-evident as you seem to think.

Your argument as a whole is truly bizarre, anyway. If Michaelangelo despised the people praying at the Sistine Chapel, his work there wouldn’t have been art? :dubious:

In fact, this:

is almost the exact opposite of your argument and I think it would find wide agreement. I, for one, respect those who create art for themselves much more than those who create it primarily for the enjoyment of others and bend over backwards to please as many losers as possible.

Fair enough. Keeping in mind that DJ Whatshisname said in that BBC interview that his artistic statements are for each individual to interpret as they may, it sounds to me like a great way to get people to stop and think about how much value they’ve put on money. Even the fact that he regrets burning it is part of the statement: even he, the one who burned all the money in the first place, acknowledges that he is not above longing for it. It’s a statement about the human condition–that we are so concerned about hoarding our money that we express shock and outrage when it’s treated like any other pile of papers. At least one poster actually got angry about it, as if it were his million quid. But, really, what were they doing but calling a spade a spade? Money is nothing but a piece of paper before you take the societal construct of legal tender into account. I’m not saying that I would have burned it if it were my million quid, but the fact that the act still has the power to strongly affect emotions over a decade later is a testament to the strength of its artistic statement. JMHO.

I never said that art’s ability to piss people off was its measure of worth. You could just as soon say that the ability to make people tranquil is the measure of art’s worth because some highly-regarded works of art are good at that, and that would be absurd. The point is that this act did what it intended to do: draw lots of attention to modern society’s obsession with money. That’s all I’m saying. It’s an interesting point and an interesting way to make it. (You claim not to find it interesting, but then, why are you here talking about it?) You might not agree that it’s good art, and you might justifiably be angry that the million quid didn’t go to, say, a drive to end hunger, but there’s room for subjective interpretation in all of that, which is enough for me to take their word for it that it was an artistic statement. But for some people here to be apoplectic that it’s even considered artistic seems really bizarre to me.

As for the law against intentionally defacing or destroying currency, I can’t claim to know anything about the laws of that particular Scottish island.

Do you really believe that that’s even remotely similar to burning money? If so, you may have deep problems that the question of “art vs. not art” hardly scratches the surface of. As for the fact that they regret it, of course they do. They burned a million quid. It’s a big deal. It hurt their financial picture. That’s the point.

Really? You can’t eat money. Oh, sure, it’s possible that that million quid (which, I’m pretty sure, would not have been worth a million dollars’ worth of food anyway–let’s not lose our grip on basic economics here, 1994 quid != 1994 USD) might have been spent on food. But it wasn’t food, and it’s just as likely that it would’ve been spent on flatscreen televisions, alcohol, strippers and cocaine.

104

At least the money would have gone to feed the families of hardworking TV manufacturers, distillers, exotic dancers and coke dealers.

105

Well, in terms of acts that are idiotic in a practical sense which are labeled as art in an effort to justify them, then, yes.

Wait a minute. They knew they’d regret it in the end? They are even bigger idiots than I thought.

Really? Is it difficult to exchange money for food where you live?

Give a starving person $5 and explain to him that he can’t eat it. He’ll beg to differ as he turns to march off to the grocery store.

Which is also very wasteful yet somewhat defensible. At least you’d have a TV and the memory of good times in the end. Here, we are talking about willing money into nonexistence in the name of art. Not the same.

106

To continue the hijack, burning a million dollars (or pounds) in currency isn’t the same as destroying a million dollars worth of goods. The currency is just a coupon. Buring currency is essentially the same thing as giving the money to the government.

107

In the strictest sense, sure. But when we consider the practical role cash plays on the street, it’s fluidity blurs the difference between cash and real goods. In fact, isn’t that its purpose?

108

I beg to differ. I would have called them idiots if they had truly had no idea that they would miss a million quid.

That’s true enough, but I’m not the type to demand that people defend their use of their own hard-earned cash. YMMV.

109

Trust me, they’re idiots either way.

It seems that it does.

110

In post war Britain the previously pretty rigid class system was breaking down,the standard of living was improving and pop culture was big.

Many people were very self congratulatory,teenagers,the then working class and the liberal left,without quite honestly any thing of merit to justify it in most cases.

The Beatles became mega stars because of the often unthinking fandom of these people.

Then John Lennon wrote “Working Class Hero”

Some of the lyrics from this being

You think your so clever and classless and free
But you’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see

Which if we’re honest is as true now quite often as it was then.

I’m working class myself by the way before anyone gets indignant.

111

He did hate being famous, but I got the impression he hated a subset of his fans who liked Nirvana’s music at a superficial level and and wanted to appear trendy (which would agree with the anecdote in Alessan’s post). He’s supposed to have written the song ‘In Bloom’ about a Nirvana fan he met didn’t seem to notice that the lyrics were putting down people who “liked to shoot (their) gun”.

The artist Robert Crumb seems to have a pretty strong aversion to fame.

112

I feel stupid for not thinking of Crumb myself. I’m a big Crumb fan, but definitely would NOT want to meet him because I know how much he despises “fan-boys”. The only fans he’ll sign stuff for are women he’s attracted to (big women with powerful legs). The last interview I read with him was only made possible because the magazine provided a female contortionist for him to play with during the interview. Which is a paradox because most of the women I’ve known hate his work because of the apparent misogyny in his work (not true - he hates men every bit as much).

113

The late blues musician “Robert Junior” Lockwood was so named because he was the only person ever taught guitar by the legendary Robert Johnson, whom his mother dated. Lockwood was notoriously testy with people in the last twenty years or so who peppered him with questions about Johnson, ignoring Lockwood’s own accomplishments, which went well beyond whatever Johnson showed him.

A blues radio DJ I know once advised me that if I were ever to meet Lockwood, “make damn sure” to ask him about his own work, not Johnson’s.

114

I was being a bit rhetorical there – I didn’t actually think that you thought “pissing people off” was the sole measure of art. Obviously, different pieces of art inspire different emotions. My point is that if we’re judging art on the emotional reaction it inspires, then good art inspires complex, nuanced emotions. Simply inspiring anger doesn’t qualify, because any idiot can make people mad.

This is in response to your comment: “In fact, they seem to have been quite successful, since you guys are still all riled up by their destroying money that you’d rather have.” My point is, all that says is that they successfully pissed people off. It doesn’t mean they created art of any value.

First, I question whether it drew attention to “society’s obsession with money”, as opposed to just drawing attention to the actions of the KLF? I mean, was anyone really inspired to say “Man, we need to rethink how much value we’re placing on money”, or were most people just saying “Can you believe the KLF burned a million quid?” I’m guessing the latter, but maybe I’m wrong.

But more importantly, my point is that if it’s art at all it’s certainly bad art, and spending a million quid on bad art is incredibly wasteful. I submit that in order to be good art, art must either inspire some sort of complex, nuanced or difficult to achieve emotions, or must make an original or at least interesting statement. I think this pretty clearly fails on both counts.

First, what’s interesting about saying “Society is too obsessed with money”? That’s something that’s been said a million times before in a million different ways. It seems to me like they were repeating one of the most trite statements there is, and in an incredibly heavy-handed way.

As far as why I’m talking about this, I’m mostly still talking about it because I find it irritating that people defend this sort of thing as art. Is any obnoxious action art (or more to the point “good art”) just because there’s some trite “message” attached to it?

I’m not disputing they were making a statement. I’m saying making a trite statement in an incredibly wasteful way shouldn’t be excused because “it’s art”.

If someone spends a million bucks to buy themselves a mansion, no one pretends they’re doing something noble. But if someone spends a million bucks to piss people off and get in the news, we’re supposed to pretend they’re doing something positive just because they have a “message” associated with it? Even if the “message” is something everyone has already heard a million times before?

115

To elaborate a little: Yeah, art is subjective. So give me your subjective take on the matter. What makes something good art? Does it merely have to say something, or does it have to say something original or nuanced? Does it merely have to make you feel something, or does it have to make you feel something surprising or complex?

If it’s the latter, then is the statement “People care too much about money” original? Did the KLF burning a bunch of money give some new insight into this claim, or make it more persuasively than people had made it in the past? Did it produce emotions more nuanced than the usual mix of shock, outrage, amusement, etc. that occur when any “scandalous” activity is reported in the media?

Basically, I have a problem with people defending otherwise obnoxious actions as art just because they “made a statement”. If a guy goes around giving soldiers the finger as a way of saying “War is bad”, that doesn’t make him an artist. He’s just an asshole who’s making a trite statement in an obnoxious way. And if someone burns a huge pile of money in order to say “People care too much about money”, they’re just being wasteful.

Sorry if I’m attacking your personal view on art here. I just really feel like the measure of good art has to be more than “It got people’s attention” and “It made a statement.” You say you find it interesting, so tell me, what was so interesting about it? I honestly can’t see what’s so interesting about the content of their statement. It would be interesting if no one had ever observed that people care too much about money, but people have been making that exact statement for thousands of years. It seems to me the only distinguishing feature of this particular restatement of that cliche is that they conveyed their message in a particularly wasteful way.

116

Good art? That’s like pornography: I know it when I see it. Or not, sometimes. I don’t think most performance art is done justice by baking it down to “good art vs. bad art”, anyway. That’s not what I’ve been arguing all along, in any case. All I’ve been saying is that I’m not enough of an ass to judge people for what they do with their own money.

That said, I’ll answer your other questions anyway, because they’re good ones:

Not particularly, although:

  1. The proper question would be “Was the statement original in 1994?”, which I wouldn’t be able to answer, since I was far too young (about 8) to fully appreciate it anyway.

  2. Personally, I don’t think a piece of art has to be 100% original to be worthy. In fact, I believe the vast majority of great art is pretty derivative. Everyone has influences and sounding/reading/looking like those influences to some degree is, IMHO, a credit to those influences. For example, I would consider “your writing sounds like Kurt Vonnegut’s” a big compliment.

Perhaps. The fact that they deliberately sacrificed a big chunk of their own financial well-being–bigger than I thought, it seems–knowing full well that they would regret it, says a lot about their determination to get the message across, and the ferocity with which they felt it. Of course, people (the Australian philosopher Peter Singer comes to mind) have made the same statement in more humanitarian ways by, for example, giving everything they made over $30,000 a year to charity. I think there was a baseball player who did something like that too, but I don’t remember who.

Another “perhaps”, with a “depends” thrown in there. I, for one, wish I had had the million quid instead, and thinking about this makes me wonder what I would have done with it and whether I would have thought differently about my million quid if someone else had burned their own million quid. I think that’s a little more nuanced than shock, outrage, amusement, etc., with the caveat that just about every emotion is more nuanced than the usual assortment of shock, outrage, amusement, etc.

Well, it just sounds like the kind of thing I couldn’t bring myself to actually do with a million quid. In fact, I could see myself promising to burn a million quid and then chickening out, or maybe spending some of the quid on drugs and alcohol and then realizing that I didn’t have a million quid to burn anymore. It’s interesting to me that they not only seriously planned to burn a million of their own quid, but that they went through with it. I think I could have a fascinating conversation with DJ Whatshisface about it over a bowl of soup. YMMV.

It’s also interesting that they were in effect saying to the millions of people who had bought their records, “Here’s what we think of your money. Fuck your money.” That’s interesting to me, and since it’s presumably how the example got into this thread in the first place, it’s interesting to some other Dopers too. Again, YMMV.

117

I’d say that your protestations and the obvious deep-seated emotions that you feel inspired by this installation proves the value of such art.

118

I agree. The normal reaction to something dumb is to say “well, that’s dumb,” not get emotionally invested in it to this degree. Clearly something is at work.

Art Spiegleman doesn’t seem to be a huge fan of his fans.

119

David Letterman can, on some nights, come across as pretty damn contemptuous of the fans who pack his icy-cold studio.

120

Though I see that this could be a joke, regarding SK’s famously terrible book endings, he is really pretty gracious to his fans–for many years he set aside his afternoons daily to personally respond to fan letters and autograph books people sent him in the mail. It’s one of the things he cut back on when he semi-retired.