I have been very active over the last few weeks getting out and experiencing the best that Seattle has to offer culturally: the Seattle Symphony, Seattle Opera, a performance at St. James Cathedral, the Seattle Art Museum. It's not because I have a lot of free time, or that I'm doing it (well, only, hah!) to meet girls. I strongly, strongly believe that as an artist it is my imperative to do so on several levels.
The challenge laid down for me, being in this PhD department and as a emerging artist, is to create art that endures. Art that lays down some sort of framework that future generations of artists and build upon. Most of the time when you go to a classical music concert, you get the good stuff, the stuff from composers that has truly endured. You see beautiful gothic architecture, that has certainly endured. You see a Pollack painting - many think he will endure.
I also think it's important for academically affiliated artists to get out of the Ivory Tower once in awhile and see the world. I feel that systems oriented art, digital art, art these days, cannot be produced in a cultural vacumn. It needs to be relevant. It doesn't necessarily have to be commenting on anything specific. I find that hanging out with non artists, I surprisingly sometimes get much more natural and interesting ways of looking at the world.
Baudelaire wrote that the artist should be a Man of the People. An artist "tied to his palette" becomes an isolated artistic brute. I believe that an open curiosity to the world, to be entrenched in the customs and a wide range of people, can grant an artist more potential than the former.
In the case of the Symphony and the Opera, I joined their clubs for young professionals (Wolfgang for the symphony, the Bravo Club for the opera) . I'm hanging out not just with some neat professionals who are looking to meet other people and hang out and enjoy art, I'm meeting the future art audience. I'm not saying I'm going to create work with them specifically in mind, but it's good to see how they may see the world and my own work.
Posted by edtang at November 6, 2004 03:33 PM | TrackBack