Professor and author Carol Martin has had an ongoing fascination, exploring the theatre of the real, where the most authentic and accurate stories are those told from multiple narratives and perspectives, not ones that are merely accepted as commonplace. She cites David Hare's Via Delorosa (1998 premiere) which was a one-person play / travelogue of Hare's journey (1997) through Israel and Palestine dealing with the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
Where Martin noticed discrepancies in his piece was the lack of multiple viewpoints and narratives: "Significantly, Hare says little about radical Islam in relation to the Palestinians" (Theatre of the Real, 112). She goes on to say, "The devastating effect of Britain's own colonial past in the Middle East is absent in Via Dolorosa" (112).
Martin was not taking a side, she was simply pointing to the fact if artists are to tell a somewhat accurate story, even if from their viewpoint and lens, other perspectives need to be included.
Another example of using multiple perspectives was last night on "Saturday Night Live," where ensemble member Pete Davidson tacked the issue of separating the "art" from the "artist" when it comes to controversy. If we are to accept one narrative of the person we might respect and admire for their body of work, we need to acknowledge the other ones.
Are you able to separate the "art" from the "artist"?
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The view of total separation of art from artist is more allied with the Aesthetic movement outlines by Walter Pater in _The Renaissance_.
This article deals with the topic pedagogically, referencing Kant’s racial logic and moral philosophy. The pedagogical point coukd be extended to his aesthetic philosophy. “How to Deal with Kant’s Racism— In and Out of the Classroom” by
VICTOR FABIAN ABUNDEZ-GUERRA.
I don't adhere to that aesthetic view, dear colleagues. Just a conversation starter.
Colleague Aafra Ibrahim says what we rhetoricians think. Art is always a conversation between the artist and views or hearers, readers, etc.
It would be a mistake to try to separate the art from the artist before exploring every possible connection between the artist and the art. But the art must then be freed to inhabit the multiverse of human conversation. Art is always bigger then the artist's intentions - at least, if it's any good as art.
I just started a discussion on "synesthesia" that is influencing me so much I shd share. I don't intend to get inspired in the morning but it can often happen with music and I paint music-inspired works as well as sketch players in rehearsals. Stiff formal clothes don't show the musculature and tension as well. Look at Dambi Um's face constriction and Pierre LaPointe's neck muscles. That's hard physical labor! As somebody who grew up in an industrial town and a steel worker father I think of the work involved in music and this rehearsal is where you see work on display.
I never talked about this connection but now I see that this fits in that ART AND SCIENCE CONNECTION PROJECT under my name. We working class people may even see art and music differently--not better or worse--just differently. Instead of a social occasion to dress up, I like the rehearsals. Art is a process to me. The final painted work or performance is the shell the animal leaves behind as it moves on.
I put a bunch of references on synesthesia there just now. I also cannot paint a picture dedicated to a symphony on demand. That would be phony or contrived. I can't predict what gets me going, synesthesia wise. The AZ Chamber Music Friends now consider me their "sketcheroo mascot" and put up last Sunday's sketches on their Facebook page. I don't go for likenesses in action sketches but gesture. You have no idea how much chamber music players wobble and move around and the hands make it very hard. So you wait until they repeat a hand gesture.
Synesthesia--what's it good for? I don't know. I cannot separate synesthesia from my work. I sometimes seem to have "causes" about my industrial town beginnings but it is because I am this sensitized and grew up in a steel mill town. It is more "what do I do with that?" than a planned out social cause...Make any sense?
Having been in close contact with a lot of artists I was admiring their work and I even collaborate with them, I definitively switch to the side of a shamanic definition of art. The artist enters in a trance where he receive inspiration and have to put nothing of his conscientious mind into the piece, just to follow his plan -decided too by inspiration-. When you can clearly see the artist's intention in a piece, then it's just a cheap piece of art, that teaches almost nothing.
I think that is impossible (and inappropriate) to separate the art from the artist (and his life), at least in many cases (Van Gogh, Arshile Gorky, Marina Abramovic,Tracey Emin, Nan Goldin, etc., etc.).
Curious our colleague Gloria Lee Mcmillan says about the influence of music as a source of inspiration. I confess the same applies to me, as painter; I work always with music, and I know that has a great influence. Some paintings relate directly with concrete pieces; and sometimes the titles.
Paul Gauguin was a genuine bastard: alcoholic, pedophil, syphillitic, nasty and bitter, etc. He betrayed Van Gogh's sweet dreams of an art community in Arles and infected all the women he could in Marquises islands. Fortunately, his wonderful art was able to survive without him.
Keats praised the "chameleon artist" who is capable of creating a Desdemona as well as an Iago and trying to identify and isolate the artist from the characters he has created is a futile task. Having said that, let me also add this is quite different from the reliable narrators of fiction who enjoy a great deal of proximity with the authors who created them. The creative process is so wonderful that whereas an artist is able to leave vestiges of himself in some of the characters he creates, his imagination is able to body forth even such characters who bear the least resemblance to him. This is what keeps art so very engaging.
Art is artists' manifestation of soul which depicts their inner nature. Therefore, good artists exist simply in what they create which makes art an inseparable part of the artist. As such, when it comes to choosing between art and artist, I take side with Marcel Duchamp , who states, “I don't believe in art. I believe in artists.”
Though one would like to think of the relationship between the artist and his art is the same as that of between God and his creation, art also enjoys an autonomy free from the intervention of the artist. That is when the characters seem to take on existence of their own. I think it was Lawrence who said, 'Don't trust the teller, trust the tale.'
i think we can separate the art from the artist and this is what Roland Barthes discussed in his 1967 essay (death of the author). sometimes the writers talk about issues which are very far from their personal experience and even from their culture. they may have heard an event somewhere in the world and then they use their imagination to make a story out of it. in such cases, the story is important, not how the artist views it.
What came to mind as I was reading through this thread is that the question is akin to asking if the mother can be separated from the child. Yes of course but even though the child goes on to live a life of its own, the connection between mother and child is never completely severed. DNA can't be altered -- at least not at the moment. So I think in the same way an artist creates an artwork that has his/her fingerprints all over it, when the artwork is released into the wider world it acquires a life of its own so to speak, that is shaped by people's responses to it. However, it never quite loses its ties to the artist. The physical umbilical cord may be cut, giving the illusion of separation, but on some level the artist and the artwork will always share the same genes and so can never be completely separated from each other. The emotional and psychological ties are, of course, even more deep-seated and not as easily loosened. So, in essence, I think that while the two can live apart/ exist separately, they can never be completely severed from each other.
I knew a great artist, François Morellet, I worked with among his assistants. He always needed to forget about his past works to create a new one and was happy getting old would favor new works.
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