Hi there. I'm a long time forum reader but I finally joined the forum to thank you for this link, it is a wonderful little documentary/editorial. While I think Earthborn is right about Mr Hughes lacking a certain amount of historical perspective there is a point to his editorial. The game has indeed changed and the art itself is no longer necessarily the focus. If you will indulge me rambling a bit I will try to explain where I am coming from.
I actually got my BFA from The School of Visual Arts in New York City. My degree was in animation, not "fine art", and my mentor was an old animator who had worked all his life in advertising animation. I've never really understood art as anything other than a business. Either you create something the view likes and is willing to pay you for, or you lose the contract and go hungry.
Animation was a tough major. It is as much a craft as an art and requires precision and an ability to repeat the same forms over and over with subtle, carefully controlled variations. I still remember our anatomy instructor, he was like a Drill Sargent! I swear, he would have smacked us with a ruler if the college had let him. But we learned a lot and put out beautiful, well rendered anatomical drawings.
Anyway, at the college they would often show student work in the halls. It would often be the best of each class. One day the halls were filled with these garish, over done, imprecise monstrosities of anatomy drawings. Legs out of proportion, heads badly shaped, and sloppy rendering. After half a year of intense anatomy classes I was shocked. When I asked about them I was told that they were from the Fine Arts majors and that they were allowed to submit such things as their anatomy assignments. One of the other students grinned and joked that it was alright if they slacked off in the anatomy classes because apparently they were required to take a whole other set of classes we were never even offered. Those classes? They were on such things as how to get into a gallery and how to create an artist persona.
So, long story short, what I learned was that most of what hangs in the modern art galleries is only the backdrop to what had been a much more interesting piece of performance art. The real art is convincing your audience to buy the piece in the first place. Getting a gallery showing, wooing clients, getting recognized, those are the real art for fine artists.
Me, I'm just glad when I can get a bit of contract work here and there and make ends meet. I just don't have the hootspa to be a fine artist. The world of Fine Art does not seem to be about who is the best artist or the most skilled, in fact I would hazard a guess that most of the most skilled artists are now in commercial fields like comic books and computer games.
Business is always about figuring out what people are willing to pay for and convincing them to but it from you. And don't kid yourself, art is a business just like any other.
Wow, long first post. If you read through all that, thanks for indulging me.
