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| "Challenge", guache & ink, 20 x 26 in. |
One can see how the owner of a news outlet would gravitate toward the stories that sell regardless of how truthful or important they may be. This has a cumulative effect that worries me. What keeps news from becoming a list of items that fascinate us- a mythology that speaks more of our repressed fixations than of outer events? That is perfectly fine, as long as we know we are massaging our psyches, but this is not news– it's art.
Every artist is tempted to create entertainment. Where art really sizzles- the place where you can feel the earth move– is when the artist's hair is on fire! (Mozart's Requiem, Van Gogh's work, or those soviet artists who painted their visions at the cost of their actual lives.) There is no doubt in that case what is real; there's no chance that they were selling out. But where the rubber hits the road is not in the artist's process but in the viewer's experience. Viewers of today look at the great sacrifices of the burnt-headed artists of the past and are transported. By that and, oh yeah, Jeff Koons, who must be great or he wouldn't be so famous! Inside the viewer's heart maybe there's no difference, since truth is where you find it.
If you could take your novel and make it entertaining without losing the value of the compelling original truth, it might be a great hit. But that risks elevating the values of popular success above truth. The only answer is to follow the heart- which always leads to a place of isolation, not by choice of ends, but by choice of means.
1 comment:
There is no "truth" in art, or any type of fictional medium. The fictional medium is, by definition, false. What happens in that fake world does not affect the real world in any way, shape, or form. The fact that this work is "art" will not end world hunger, prevent future wars, stop injustice, or even feed the homeless shelter down the block. In the end, art is nothing more than another way to waste your time and money. Therefore, contemplating whether you get the "truth" out is irrelevant, as the world rrmains completely unchanged before and after that work is made. Thus, do not think you are a better or wiser person for indulging in "art" instead of "entertainment", as you are spending just as much time as someone who indulges in base, lowest common denominator trash at not doing something productive or helpful to the world.
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