Separating The Art From The Artist
Good afternoon. Over the last few months I've been juggling an argument in my head with the hopes of one day penning a small essay in relation to it. It's quite topical given the Hollywood sexual scandals so prevalent in Western media at this point and time and it pertains to the question of whether or not we should separate the art from the artist. Should the art be tainted by the morally questionable actions of the artist? It is my understanding that is a contentious topic, one that has cropped up time and time again in relation to the works and lives of great philosophers such as Hegel and Schopenhauer, Nazi artists, etc. In my own opinion, I believe the works should indeed stand and be judged apart from their creator, but then the line becomes murky - what if their dubious ideology is an input in the creation, what if the creation encourages such immoral world views, and so on.
A cursory search throughout my university library and the internet has provided, rather surprisingly, opinion pieces but no philosophical writing on the topic. I'm wondering if anyone here could point me in the direction of philosophers who have dealt with it? I firmly believe the question itself is one belonging to the realms of the aesthetic.
A cursory search throughout my university library and the internet has provided, rather surprisingly, opinion pieces but no philosophical writing on the topic. I'm wondering if anyone here could point me in the direction of philosophers who have dealt with it? I firmly believe the question itself is one belonging to the realms of the aesthetic.
Comments (45)
This is a really good piece.
I don't understand why people can't separate art from artist. It's fundamentally hypocritical, and indicative of our hero-worship celebrity culture; the heroine falls; we spit on her.
Perhaps you can think about it under the conception of authorial intent as put forward by Wimsatt and Beardsley.
Caravaggio was accused of killing one of his love rivals, and Benvenuto Cellini killed his brother's killer with a knife in an act of revenge. The objects these people are made are treasured and Cellini's autobiography is worth reading.
Of course it is different when the artist is alive and has not been dead for 500 years. Many people refuse to go to see films by Roman Polanski or Woody Allen. The way #MeToo is going you'll probably need a score card or something to keep track.
Right, every artist, every philosopher, every politician, puts themselves into their work. The good, the bad, and the ugly. So?
So we agree? We have to separate the art from the artist?
You know nothing about me personally, so the work is already done.
It would be difficult to know anyone who has separated their words from themselves.
What do you know about me from my words?
Where?
Lol, what?
Harvey Weinstein, whatever else he probably did do, produced a lot of good movies. So did Woody Allen, whatever it was that he probably did not do. Garrison Keillor, the avuncular Prairie Home Companion, produced hundreds and hundreds hours of perfect radio. So, he could be slightly lecherous every few years. So, he could be grumpy. So, he could be hard to work for. Mother Theresa was hard to work for. Big deal.
If Leonard DaVinci had murdered Mona Lisa, he might have hanged for it. His hanging (or his getting away with murder) takes nothing away from his work, though it probably will affect his reputation as a man.
This is, actually, true for all of us, whether we are artists or common laborers. If I perform 8 hours of honest labor for you, you got what you paid for. If the other 16 hours of my day I drink, fuck whores, smoke pot, shoot up heroin, and piss in public, but am ready to work again at 9:00 a.m., what's it to you, Jack?
This business of "Well, she is a good enough screen writer, but you know, she isn't a real feminist" is confusing categories. "He was a great actor, but he was a communist (or a Nazi, a homosexual, a rapist, heterosexual, a Republican, mass murderer, arch fiend... whatever). "He always sold more than his quota of vacuum cleaners, but you know, he cheated on his wife." So, why should Electrolux care? Maybe he needed to sell a lot of vacuum cleaners to keep both his wife and his mistress happy. Fuck Electrolux. They should be happy he was strongly motivated.
Exactly.
Quoting Bitter Crank
And even going further than your admissions on his behalf, he produced hundreds and hundreds of hours of perfect radio. Period.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Again, totally agreed.
Quoting Bitter Crank
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
K, but the question is will you go see the next movie by someone who had sex with a 14 year old? Will you endorse his behavior by viewing his film? Is the support of those who have assaulted, taken advantage of others a feasible moral choice?
If the movie is good, yes. If not, no.
Viewing the film isn't endorsement of behavior; it's a crapshoot to see if the film itself was good or not.
Indeed, and that's part of the charm of art. The artist makes an object separate from him or herself that has its own life. This object may be wiser and brighter than the artist, made possible by a kind of control an artist may have of a medium which none of us have over life itself. Fame is often envied, but it looks to have a nightmarish aspect.
:up:
Yes, I would, assuming that the movie was of interest. Am I indifferent to the possible misfortune of the 14 year old? No. And I don't know what all the producers, directors, crew, actors, editors, and everyone else who worked on the film may or may not have done to whom, how, where, and when. A lot of people work on a film. People do good, bad, and indifferent things, and they may not even have done things for which they are reviled.
Many people (a large percentage of the population, let's say 25%) have done things that when exposed in public are likely to be condemned by one group or another--and viewed as OK by others. There is a long list of things that someone might have done, or be doing now, that will result in their being pilloried. The are tried, convicted, and punished by mob justice, these days conducted on line, like #metoo and TimesUp.
Take Woody Allen. It isn't as if the charge against him (by Mia Farrow and his adopted daughter) hasn't been investigated and disposed of more than once. There is no evidence that he ever had sex with Dylan. There are no witnesses who think that it even could have happened. (This case isn't new -- it started during a bitter divorce proceeding in 1993. It was recently revived by #metoo.)
I'm not in favor of these shunning/censoring maneuvers; the casting out of some group's devil de jour. Of course, I understand righteous indignation; it's one of my favorite emotions. But... conviction in the Twitter Court does not require a response from me.
I would say it is an unavoidable choice. In the real world, people actually take advantage of others all the time: economically, socially, psychologically, politically, intellectually ... any way you can think of. As for assault, it certainly is not proper behavior. But, you know, it happens, both sexual assault and ordinary assault and battery. I'm just not in favor of black listing every person who has done something wrong. BECAUSE, Cavacava, there literally won't be anybody left to do the black listing before long.
I agree entirely, but it works both ways and that's what I find maintains this unfortunate state.
If I like Wagner's ring cycle, then the fact that he was a Nazi idol should have no influence, but I then start harping on about what a 'genius' Wagner was for writing such a masterpiece, if I start trawling up every scrap of music he ever wrote as if I were panning for gold (as many do), then I am implicitly claiming that there was something about the man himself that was great, not just that he happened to write a piece of music I like.
This kind of thinking about artists (which is all too common), inevitably leads to erroneous ideas about the links between art and lifestyle. Maybe we need to allow one or two Nazis in society just to make sure we can still benefit from Wagner and Heidegger?
Good art is just something we like the sound of or look of, nothing more. It should not make villains, because it does not make heroes either.
In the 'real world' Roman Polanski plead guilty to statutory rape of a 13 year old and then absconded to Europe where he continues to work, shielded from US justice. He won a 2002 Oscar for the Pianist: Best Director and Best Picture, so the Academy apparently did not hold his actions against his work.
I don't disagree, but as you indicated many of the alleged abusers such as Woody Allen, have no pending prosecutions. As far as I am aware Harvey Weinstein has not been criminally charged for anything although he is apparently under criminal investigation. Bill Cosby's retrial is scheduled for April. The actual list is short, but that wasn't really to point to my question.
As stated, I agree that the work of an artist is separate from the artist. The moral choice, as I see it, is whether of not to support works by such artists by paying to see their works and thereby enabling them to continue to work or to support their victims by boycott works of these people regardless of the status of their work. In the 'real world' #MeToo's targets are being dumped in mass by their support systems.
Wagner died in 1883. It's more like Nazis were Wagnerian sympathizers.
Yes, sorry that's what I meant, the Nazi association. I've edited to save face. My father is actually something of a Wagner enthusiast, so more than a little embarrassing. Hope he never reads this.
Parsifal was the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcast last Saturday. I had a nice long nap during the opera and when I woke up it was still going. There are parts of his operas that everybody likes, and long stretches where you really need to be a fan.
Switching fields, Frank Lloyd Wright is also difficult to separate from his work--the buildings--because he was so deeply committed them. (When he designed furniture for his houses, he wanted the owners to keep the furniture arranged the way he intended, not the way they wanted.)
On the other hand, I get the impression that the architects for Skidmore Owings and Merrill buildings (like the Lever House in New York or the Sears Tower in Chicago) would be quite separate from their works.
Yes, try having them playing every other Sunday over dinner, even the parts everybody likes get a bit 'samey'.
Interesting concept though about art which is so much a part of the artist that it cannot really be separated from them. Quite apart from Wagner's views about Jewishness (which he wrote about quite candidly) his nationalism is so reflected in many of his works it would be hard to take them as works of art alone.
There are probably many better examples, but it seems to be particularly evident with nationalism for some reason.
Which raises moral problems as well. Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) dumped Garrison Keillor in an act of breathtaking ingratitude. Keillor is well fixed, reputationally and financially; we need not worry about his well-being. Garrison contributed his entire working life to MPR, and is a big reasons MPR is a leading player in Public Radio. Worse, in terms of "the optics" they dumped him when they no longer needed him. He had retired from the Prairie Home Show (and they abruptly dropped that name too, replacing it with the tone-deaf "Live From Here" moniker). They also dropped the daily 5 minute Writer's Almanac and rebroadcasts of the Prairie Home show.
Keillor's crimes fall into the category of "moody", occasionally harsh criticism of staff persons, difficult to work with. On a few occasions he made "inappropriate" overtures to female staff members. Pretty mild stuff.
So why did MPR sever the Keillor connection with an axe? High morals? I don't think so. They were scurrying to avoid any financial harm from the #metoo sex panic. The effect of #metoo went off the deep end very quickly. The quite disparate organizations which did the various severings are no more moral than any other corporate entity; they were not protecting morals, they were protecting their bottom lines, and throwing a disposable cape of high ethical standards over their shoulders while they did it.
Bill Cosby's behavior isn't in the same ball park as most of the people targeted and punished by #metoo. Drugging women to have sex with them is clearly much, much worse than what falls into the category of "inappropriate". It's clearly criminal.
I hope you won't think this is irrelevant. It's a clip from one of my favorite TV shows, Justified. I find it very moving:
I don't really disagree with those responding on this thread saying the art should be judged independent from the artist, but good art isn't "just something we like the sound or look of..." It's something that moves us, gets into our hearts. It is an uncomfortable thought that I have been strongly affected by someone whose motives are suspect or worse.
But isn’t it relatively rare for influential artists, philosophers, etc., to be totally innocent of morally reprehensible behavior? And what of things people have done that no one knows about? I just don’t think it’s realistic to restrict your consumption of art etc. to people who, as far as you’re aware, led upright lives, or lives that agree with your own morals. If everyone you looked up to in art/ philosophy etc was found to be morally degenerate, what would happen to your philosophy? Your aesthetics? What if only one upright person was left? Would they become your god? Whatever they say, whatever they create, is “right” or “good” in your eyes?
As I indicated, I endorse the "the art speaks for itself" position. That wouldn't stop me from being uncomfortable. For example, "The Cosby Show" is shown on one of the stations I receive. I liked it when it was on originally. When I come across it by chance now, I turn the channel quickly. That's not a philosophical position, it's a personal response.
Yeah, I think the Cosby case is the real case; it's the one that we can all agree on. Was that the case that started the #metoo movement? I can't remember. If so, then it was certainly justified.
But lesser cases, as I think @Bitter Crank has well illustrated, are less clear.
And yes, that it's a personal response is of course, completely acceptable. Even rational, ironically. I don't disagree with you, T Clark.
That's what "like" means, isn't it?
Quoting T Clark
This, I think, is circular. It is possible that it's only an uncomfortable thought because you are committed to the idea that something about that artist directly caused the art. If, on the other hand, you are of the opinion, as I am, that great art is tapping into something inside the mind of the receiver, rather than extracting something from the mind of the artist, then the nature of the person who actually put together those brush strokes, those characters, that dialogue etc becomes irrelevant. The aesthetic of that particular combination was already in my head, anyone could have stumbled across it, it just happened to be that particular artist.
I've not heard it so much with paintings, but lots of great storyteller talk about the story being "out there" already and they just find it. I think all art is like that, the personality of the one who 'finds it' is irrelevant.
This is actually what materialism/determinism amounts to but it is the first time I've actually heard someone describe himself/herself as irrelevant. Yes, if someone takes your position, humans, and what they say and do, of all persuasions, become irrelevant in all respects.
Not for me it isn't. There's lots of stuff I like that I'm not especially moved by. I read a lot of science fiction, but I'm moved by "Heart of Darkness."
Quoting Pseudonym
First off, as I said, I wasn't making an argument at all. I was expressing a personal preference. I don't have to be consistent or even rational. I am familiar with the idea of art creating itself through the artist. I have felt it myself in when I write, but I recognize that it's a part of me of which I am not conscious. It's just as much me as my conscious self.
I think either you or I have misunderstood the nature of a discussion forum. I wasn't under the impression that this was a space for us to just post "stuff we prefer" and then... well what exactly? What kind of response did you expect to a statement that you don't even think makes rational sense and is just a personal preference?
My favourite colour is green. What do we do with that?
Yes, I do think you have misunderstood the nature of a discussion forum. This one at least. As for what kind of response I expected - I didn't expect any particular reaction, but I got some which were thoughtful and responsive. Others, at least some, do not seem to share your disdain.
On the other hand a Jung argues that certain artistic products are borne of visionary, primordial experiences that are expressed by the artist, yet completely independent from the human artist himself. These are symbolic expressions that exist in their own right and in bringing forth these visions from the collective unconscious to our consciousness minds in the form of art, these artists fulfill the roles of seers of prophets. Art then serves as compensatory adjustment for the biases and physic ailments of a specific generation and is brought about by the unexpressed desires of the specific epoch. Jung even warned against taking too serious the all too human interpretation that the creator of a work might put forward in relation to the work itself.
"There may be some validity in the idea held by the Freudian school that artists without exception are narcissistic - by which is meant that they are undeveloped persons with infantile and auto-erotic traits. The statement is only valid, however, for the artist as person and has nothing to do with the man as an artist. In his capacity of artist he is neither auto-erotic, nor hetero-erotic, nor erotic in any sense. He is objective and impersonal - even inhuman - for as an artist he is his work, and not a human being." (Jung Modern Man in Search of a Soul 172).
As to whether Weinstein was the latter type of artist is debatable.
Hi and welcome to TPF, nice 1st post.
I think that psychoanalysis can help explain the dynamics of a work of art, but in doing this, it seems to forget the form of the work.
I like this idea because I think works of art are primarily a result of the society where an artist works, not as overtly causal, but as the effects of the unconsciousness grappling with the archetypes, stated and unstated narratives that swirl around in society. The artist thereby is an instrument of culture who has the unique ability to sense what bubbles up from inside his/her self and gives it form in the work of art. The form that is used typically has an accepted foundation (even when that foundation was unaware of itself as in Schoenberg's 12 tone) that exists aside from the artist generally.
I don't find the ascription of normal or abnormal to an artist particularly helpful in trying to understand their work and I agree with Jung that there is a great difference between the act of creation and what is created.
I don't think of Weinstein as an artist. I think he is more like a shrewd gallery owner that knows how to spot talent and then promote it.