Art and Commodity

[resist_anywhere]

Here's the thought I've been milling for awhile, which was brought to the front of my mind by a discussion in class tonight: is there an inherent, intrinsic distinction between "art" and "commodity"?  In class, we were discussing the supposed difference between corporate-created music like that of Britney Spears or those annoying Jonas brothers and

Comments

[erolyn_]

See, I don't think anyone's ever going to agree on a solid definition of what art is or isn't. So I think it's kind of a useless argument.

But maybe it's just based on intention - if you're producing something just for financial gain and attention (ala Britney) rather than self-expression, should you get to call yourself an artist? Probably not. But as long as no one's stopping me from practicing MY art, I honestly don't care all that much. A capitalist society is going to commodify anything and everything it can, the only thing you can really do on an individual scale is ignore it.

[incendiary_dan]

I think it's a matter of quality and homogenization, really. The corporate media, particularly in their selling of artistic expression, attempts to appeal to as many people as they can, and in doing so need to basically water everything down. In making all the music and other arts similar, making them marketable and not prone to rub against the grain of the audience, the quality is lowered. That, and it gets pretty boring having music all the same. Independently made art varies greatly in quality, and has the luxury of being able to deal with deeper, more important issues that how much of a slut the singer is. Of course, there's plenty of that, too.

I'm reminded of a chance occurrence I had one morning, when I happened to catch one of those shitty morning shows. The two guests were a pop/rap artist, and a country artist. A mishap occurred in the queuing of the music and sample videos, and the country guy's video ran to the sound of the rapper's music. Nobody noticed for ten seconds, however, because they matched up! These

[incendiary_dan]

Oh yea, and a book suggestion:

Conserving Cultures by Harry Redner.

[resist_anywhere]

But the fact that we have an independent music scene shows that even under corporate capitalism, people still do want (to buy) other kinds of music. Just because something is a smaller market doesn't mean that it is not a market. Also, I know people who just genuinely like some pop music better than some independent stuff... are they automatically corporate shills for their preferences?

[zer]

Anecdote

[resist_anywhere]

Yeah, it's good to hear from you! I was thinking of you as somebody whose opinion I wanted on this.

I don't disagree with anything you say. For me, the biggest two problems with centralization of design and production are the lack of variety that usually results and the lack of experiences it grants others. Like you said, there is a different feeling to creating your own art compared to buying someone else's, and even if one is an artist either way, there is a better feeling associated with producing one's own designs than with just following orders. Therefore, it'd be nice if everyone, or more people at least, could produce art the way they want... in short, if art was a commodity of prestige and skill rather than simply wealth.

[yes_justice]

You're comparing seminal artists to vapid ones because they operate in a similar economic framework, right?

The music industry that brought us britany spears was still in its childhood in 1960's. I suppose that's not a big difference in terms of profit, but definitely amounted to a difference in terms of meaningful content leaking through.

Definitely different in terms of culture as well. I don't recall much music getting people into the streets over the last decade, but definitely true of the 1960's.

[resist_anywhere]

What exactly caused those differences, though? Is it really because art is now more commodified, or is it just that contemporary art is worthless crap in terms of its power and beauty?