Hi Steven,

I am speaking for myself as a professional artist. For me, I have a moral responsibility to share my knowledge and passed on the knowledge  I have to the next generation and make my community proud of what I have achieved. Skills and experiences gain from academic training and personal pursuits are influence by the people I met. Therefore, it is ethically  right that I return  that favour for the benefit of the community.

Definitely yes. As I observed, the more successful an artist is, the more contribution he/she has to the society, i.e. donation, charity, role model to the public etc. With great reputation comes great responsibility.  

definitely yes, especially in the social context where majorities are silent.

This is a question that I find deeply resonant. I make art as a document, narrative and visual commentary, working both within a local community and within the wider community of the art world. I see my practice as vital to the development of mutual understanding both between people who live in my immediate neighbourhood of Chapeltown (Leeds, Yorkshire, UK) and within the wider context of work shown outside of my particular geographic location. I use art as a means of conversational dialogue and as a story telling device that seeks to develop allegorical significance within a multi-cultural community, an area of overlapping ‘imagined communities’, diverse groups of people that have managed to rub along together for many years, but that have recently had their world view tested, as global migration and the refugee crisis have revealed old wounds and raised the spectre of past migration stories. The stories held within these imagined communities are often far more powerful than any set of actual physical circumstances and they allow the individuals within them to lead rich emotional lives, lives that are looking for purpose and a focus around which to build personal narratives. As an artist embedded within this community, these stories are taken up more as emotional signposts than as things for logical analysis, and woven together with images of the city and signs and symbols of allegorical intent.

Within each community individuals play out their day-to-day lives and it is at this level that the mixing with and adjustment to others happens. At an individual level stories and imaginations mix and narrative threads become entwined, what for one person is a threat is for another is a reminder of family history. The emotional registers of a population that is mostly from somewhere else, swaying between the need to establish roots and loyalty to a nation that has hosted them, to a cry for help and support, mixed with anger and envy at a society that is clearly divided into the haves and have-nots.

This last year has seen a new influx of migration; as the ‘go-to’ area when it comes to receiving new immigrants into the city, it has recently had to absorb, Ethiopians, Syrians and Iraqis on top of the influx of Polish and Eastern European migrants, which had themselves moved in alongside the more established communities of West Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Indians as well as older Eastern European communities, whose clubs and community centres still exist in the area.

 The work of an artist within such a community asks questions that highlight many of the issues facing contemporary artists. These include questions about audience, access and communication, as well as process and reception, and I show work done both within the local community and within that wider community I call the art world.

 On the one hand I think that I have helped in being a conduit or channel for individuals to articulate what they want to say, and on the other hand I would hope to have helped communicate the feeling tone of a local community out into the wider world of decision makers. People come to me to help them visualise what they feel the place should look like.

 So yes individually I feel that there is still a role for an artist working within a community, but it is a role that has to be developed carefully and sensitively, if not the community will not engage with it or feel any ownership towards work done.  There are faint glimpses of the old role of the shaman in what can be done, not in any religious sense but in the need for a community to have someone embedded within it who can help shape what it is that is beginning to be felt, who can voice worries without making them fixed points around which bigotry can fester and who can be a first point of call when you want something visualised. 

Of course. Since an artist is a human being and a part of the social moral world that we live in.  Thus, his actions as an artist or as an ordinary human being is not exempted from moral scrutiny, evaluation and judgment.  The artist does not just live in his own art world alone. His work of art is seen and judge by others according to its social and moral impact. An artist may claim that his work is a work of a genius but for a community it maybe offensive according to the generally expected moral standard of society.

I guess the question is far more complex than at first it appears to be.

First of all, I wouldn’t talk about “moral responsibility” but of “moral obligation” or “moral duty”.

You may have a moral obligation to do something, and, because of certain circumstances, even if you cannot comply with that moral obligation, you may not be morally responsible for not complying with it (say, for example, that you where incapacitated at the time to comply with your moral duty, in this case, you are not morally responsible for not complying).

So, the question would be if artists have a moral obligation to serve their community.

Even this is too broad a question, for you can take it to refer to the artist as a common person, or as an artist specifically.

As a common person the answer is (or at least I take it to be) a sound “yes”. Like everybody else the artist has an obligation to contribute to the common well-being of the society. This is the approach that some of the answers already posted seem to take.

But the other way in which the question may be interpreted (and the way I think you meant it) is complex, because it refers to the artist as an artist, and this question asks if the artist has a moral obligation to serve their community “through his/her art”.

Here you have two possible positions:

There are those who think that art must be free, that means, that art must not have a purpose beyond just being art.

And there are others (myself included) that think that art always has a purpose. Even when art is just about the present, or about futility, it teaches something, is a window to experience something (even if the experience is that of futility).

So (I think) the artist impacts society through his/her work, even if that is not his/her intended purpose.

Does that mean that his/her pieces must always have a moral lesson or teaching? I don’t think so.

What I think it means is that the artist has a moral duty to think about how his/her work impacts society, so the impact, whatever it is, is intended.

So, in the end, my answer to your question can be summarized like this: the question I interpret it to be “Do the artists have a moral obligation to help their community through their art” and I would answer: They have a moral duty to be aware, to be conscious, to reflect on the way their art impacts society, that’s all the moral duty I think artist have.

Of course, I could be blatantly wrong.

Hope this helps.

Cheers.  

In keeping with some of your respondents, I find the reciprocity of community/artist to be a vital source of energy in my community creative dance work with mature movers: I gain from the involvement of my participants by listening to their comments and ideas and by encouraging their movement responses - I provide the 'skeleton' of a dance and they flesh it out. They report that  they feel their movement repertoire is freed up and they feel safe to experiment within their own ability range in the class environment. They're equally quick to tell me if they don't like my ideas and I challenge them to offer their own.

But the idea of 'moral responsibility' suggests that artists should perhaps give freely of their talents and that's a sticky issue. I work freelance but there's no way I could make a living out of what I do. I do it because I feel it is worthwhile, and, being a pensioner, I can afford to do it for a minimal charge, but I still have to cover the cost of insurance, PPL for the music, and other costs. The main influence on my pedagogical stance is the work of Pierre Bourdieu and the interplay between habitus and social field, encouraging participants to push boundaries within a protective framework.

But at what cost to the artist or community? That's a huge debate.

Hi,

I believe we all are artists in our own rights and do have moral and social  responsibilities to our various communities and society at large. Art is a very broad discipline and encompasses several varying sub-disciplines.

I also think that an artist already contributes socially, especially, just by publicizing his/her art each time, thereby spurring social interests and interactions among the art recipients. Moral responsibility. I think, is a more pointed and deliberate act on the artist's part, which rests within his/her moral and social intent.The image the artist wants to reflect and the impact s/he hopes to make on the community or society should determine how morally responsible the individual is or holds his or her self. I doubt the decision of moral responsibility is determined by external forces as much as by internal and intrinsic sources of individual artists. I think the level of moral responsibility you display within your community tells who you are and expect others to esteem you. As such, I think the individual artist is the best person to determine whether and how much moral responsibility s/he does have to the community or society.

Just a thought.,   

I think no more moral responsibility than any other citizen. It is society as a whole which gives moral quality to an artistic work, as to any professional or personal act.

Juan, I agree with your first statement. Disagree (slightly?) with your second. I don't think society can confer a moral quality to a work of art. That particular quality is either there or not. What they can do is pass a moral judgement on it, which is anybody's right of interpretation and they might take action on that judgement if they have the power (an epidemic of strategically placed stone fig leaves comes to mind!).

Mores change. As Cole Porter wrote:

"...In olden days a glimpse of stocking

Was looked on as something shocking,

But now, God knows,

Anything Goes...."

The artist's role in society is to represent her ideas to the best of her abilities from her knowledge and skills.

Christopher, thank for your clarifications. The nuances of meaning are always welcome.

“I don't think society can confer a moral quality to a work of art”.

Who grants it then? The author? The Academy? The experts? I think the society as a whole. And not necessarily the contemporary society. An example: When Cervantes wrote Don Quixote did not believe he was creating a moral text. Quite the opposite. And the readers of the seventeenth century interpreted don Quixote as a humorous work. Now, however, it seems impossible to think that Don Quixote is not a moral novel. Readers of the novel over time have granted that value. The way of read Don Quixote along the centuries has changed its appreciation. Cervantes perhaps could surprise of our current valuations.

Hi. I believe everyone has a moral responsibility to serve their own communities, not exempting the artists.

I think the contributions of both J Mata and C Rout bear great merit and is now depending on the interpretations of their readers.

Thank you Juan and Christopher.