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DPChallenge Forums >> General Discussion >> When is an artist NOT an artist?
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12/03/2012 04:46:22 AM · #1
I was watching a locally produced show about Tacoma super-hero Dale Chihuly, it followed him as he designed an installment that was going down to California if I remember correctly.
At any rate, after the show was over I found myself wondering if I could really call him an artist. He certainly conceived the design but had a small army of glass blowers that were doing all the actual work. They would pull out some glass, create the design and he would say "oh yeah, that looks nice. Ok we need 20 more of those" and then walk off. This seemed to be the process for the entire installation.
I wonder, is this standard in the glass art world? Would you call him an artist if he conceived the design but never got hands on with the actual production of it?
12/03/2012 05:19:14 AM · #2
It's an interesting point. Damian Hirst does much the same thing of course. I'm not sure that he actually hand pickled those sharks himself and much of the actual making of his smaller works is done by assistants. Then there's Andy Warhol of course. I do think of both Warhol and Hirst as artists though and like very much a lot of their work.

12/03/2012 05:21:54 AM · #3
One way i answer your question When is an artist NOT an artist? is when the art is used to sell something other than itself. That's just a personal distinction though as i generally dislike the world of advertising etc Although i'm quite fzzy on that distinction.

Message edited by author 2012-12-03 05:26:12.
12/03/2012 06:14:16 AM · #4
Originally posted by rooum:

One way i answer your question When is an artist NOT an artist? is when the art is used to sell something other than itself. That's just a personal distinction though as i generally dislike the world of advertising etc Although i'm quite fzzy on that distinction.


That is interesting because I would ask, if a huge company, perhaps Hallmark asked to use and image of yours on some sappy greeting card and was to pay you handsomely for it would you take the deal and still feel like an artist?

Message edited by author 2012-12-03 06:14:53.
12/03/2012 06:23:30 AM · #5
Yes, that's the sort of thing i'm getting at. I've sold stock images in the past....mostly for things like calanders and the odd book cover or something- and i find it hard to think of those images as art once they've gone off on their pan handling. I fully accept this is just snobbery on my behalf or something. There are different levels of course and it depends on what is being sold.
12/03/2012 06:25:50 AM · #6
When you press the button on your Canon, are you an artist? You didn't design the sensor, press the glass in your lenses, code the chip that translates all the Is and Os into the image that Adobe's Photoshop (don't get me started) reads as megapixels, or feed the ink into the cartridges that your printer interprets as the colours you saw. Yet still...it's your art. Yeah, it looks nice. But you really had little to do with the process of making the photo, no?

So to answer your question: yes. I would still call him an artist.

Then again, what do I know about art? I'm a photographer.

Originally posted by smardaz:

I was watching a locally produced show about Tacoma super-hero Dale Chihuly, it followed him as he designed an installment that was going down to California if I remember correctly.
At any rate, after the show was over I found myself wondering if I could really call him an artist. He certainly conceived the design but had a small army of glass blowers that were doing all the actual work. They would pull out some glass, create the design and he would say "oh yeah, that looks nice. Ok we need 20 more of those" and then walk off. This seemed to be the process for the entire installation.
I wonder, is this standard in the glass art world? Would you call him an artist if he conceived the design but never got hands on with the actual production of it?
12/03/2012 07:13:00 AM · #7
Originally posted by Pedro:

When you press the button on your Canon, are you an artist? You didn't design the sensor, press the glass in your lenses, code the chip that translates all the Is and Os into the image that Adobe's Photoshop (don't get me started) reads as megapixels, or feed the ink into the cartridges that your printer interprets as the colours you saw. Yet still...it's your art. Yeah, it looks nice. But you really had little to do with the process of making the photo, no?

So to answer your question: yes. I would still call him an artist.

Then again, what do I know about art? I'm a photographer.


The only problem with that analogy is I dont have a team of people setting up my lights and pushing the trigger for me, I dont expect him to manufacture the oven they use to heat the glass.

12/03/2012 07:14:37 AM · #8
When the person thinks they are an artist.
12/03/2012 07:34:14 AM · #9
When is a surgeon not a surgeon; when he tells others what to cut where and how? A professor then who does the cutting is not a professor? A teacher whose students do not perform is not a teacher? The fool with self motivated students who do perform is a real teacher? For every analogy there is a counter. There seems to be an answer out there, but I am not sure what it is.

Personally, he who conceptionalize the product someone else is willing to pay for, must be an artist.

The act of 'making' without a concept is doing, not creating. The man-with-camera is taking potshots, he neither captures something worthy nor creates anything. Is he then also a photographer? Is a photographer an artist? The-man-with-camera, is he then also an artist.

I think the day we can hear the sound of one hand clapping, we may be close to an answer. Arguments and debates are aplenty; answers in short supply. Excellent topic my friend.

Message edited by author 2012-12-03 07:39:11.
12/03/2012 08:50:41 AM · #10
You should realize that many of the great Masters had plenty of work on their masterpieces performed by their apprentices (only the most talented ones, but still...) and the Master would finally take the work to completion.
12/03/2012 09:16:18 AM · #11
Originally posted by jagar:

When the person thinks they are an artist.


right- similarly, you can only be a super hero if you deny it.
12/03/2012 09:52:34 AM · #12
Originally posted by rooum:

One way i answer your question When is an artist NOT an artist? is when the art is used to sell something other than itself. That's just a personal distinction though as i generally dislike the world of advertising etc Although i'm quite fzzy on that distinction.


i would concur with this statement for the most point :O) and typically both art and advertising which Hijacks art for purposes of selling to us as the former... both imitate each other but the statement still holds true above! :O)
12/03/2012 09:58:06 AM · #13
Originally posted by docpjv:

When is a surgeon not a surgeon; when he tells others what to cut where and how? A professor then who does the cutting is not a professor? A teacher whose students do not perform is not a teacher? The fool with self motivated students who do perform is a real teacher? For every analogy there is a counter. There seems to be an answer out there, but I am not sure what it is.

Personally, he who conceptionalize the product someone else is willing to pay for, must be an artist.

The act of 'making' without a concept is doing, not creating. The man-with-camera is taking potshots, he neither captures something worthy nor creates anything. Is he then also a photographer? Is a photographer an artist? The-man-with-camera, is he then also an artist.

I think the day we can hear the sound of one hand clapping, we may be close to an answer. Arguments and debates are aplenty; answers in short supply. Excellent topic my friend.


what makes an artist an artist is the the ability to conceptualize and transform an idea and/or imagination and express it in a way that others get something tangible and/or intangible out of the experience, good bad or otherwise, an artist can take the ordinary and mundane and transform it into something completely different and express it in a way that others can experience it, or even things others cant express or imagine and give it a medium in which to experience it on any level.
12/03/2012 11:16:12 AM · #14
Originally posted by smardaz:


The only problem with that analogy is I dont have a team of people setting up my lights and pushing the trigger for me, I dont expect him to manufacture the oven they use to heat the glass.


I was sort of being 5am facetious, but now that you mention it, I often use stylists, makeup artists, and assitants to do the grunt work (carrying gear, setting up lights, etc). I direct, they execute. It's still my photo in the end.

That said, I was just advocating for a Smardaz devil. I get that way sometimes :)

12/03/2012 11:17:55 AM · #15
I still don't admit to thinking I'm an artist though. I prefer to be a photographer.

Wait...if I call myself a photographer does that mean I'm not?
12/03/2012 11:28:30 AM · #16
So, the Mona Lisa, I might assume, is something we can all agree on is art? Does it cease to be because it is printed on purses and scarves and postcards? Also, as Spork pointed out, a gaggle of assistants doing the execution is a very, very, very long-held tradition. Then, as Marcel Duchamp famously said, it is art because I say it's art. To my mind, the lamest excuse ever.

A fascinating, but circular argument, to be sure.
12/03/2012 01:27:47 PM · #17
Since we are talking about art, here's a link to my current art/ craft project. My part of the job was to locate and get materials donated for the eyes, skin, and teeth, plus build and install about half of the teeth. So, does that make me an artist, or craftsman?

Gator in the Bay, Sun Sentinel
12/03/2012 02:57:49 PM · #18
Originally posted by tanguera:

Also, as Spork pointed out, a gaggle of assistants doing the execution is a very, very, very long-held tradition....

... brought to peak efficiency by Thomas Kincade -- you almost might say he elevated the mass production of "original" paintings into an art form ... ;-)
12/03/2012 03:08:50 PM · #19
as soon as he becomes a critic
12/03/2012 03:44:46 PM · #20
tanguera brings up the right person: Marcel Duchamp. He is the godfather of Conceptual art. Even the OP uses the term "conceive" so perhaps he knows more than he is letting on.

The whole point of Conceptual Art, Fluxus, and other movements that utterly shaped the art of today, is to question what art is. By extension, this naturally causes one to question what an artist is.

So, this is all quite deliberate.

My problem is when the revolution becomes the norm, when Castro and Robespierre start executing people. I worry that art is stuck.

btw, Damien Hirst is very much interested in crossing the exact line that Clive has drawn. Wherever there is an edge, some artist will seek it out.
12/03/2012 04:00:48 PM · #21
I liked Pedro's point about the camera that most of us (bvy is an exception) did not make. Possibly because I am occasionally astonished by the artistry/craft/technology/social organisation and materials that go into things like musical instruments and bicycles and blue jeans. And yet we bend these things to our purpose nonetheless, and make a noise. A yawp or a symphony, a wrinkle a curve a trip or a snap. Some kind of praise.

Who is to say what makes us happy or what ought to make us happy? Only us.
12/03/2012 04:09:13 PM · #22
Originally posted by jagar:

When the person thinks they are an artist.


If you every need open heart surgery give me a call! I could use the practice.
12/03/2012 08:08:19 PM · #23
Oh...are art and artists the same thing?

Message edited by author 2012-12-03 20:37:20.
12/03/2012 08:45:07 PM · #24
Originally posted by hihosilver:

Oh...are art and artists the same thing?


no, they're not. I find it far more fulfilling to think about making art than to think about being an artist.
12/03/2012 08:51:36 PM · #25
An artist should be a catalyst for contemporary art.
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