Forgive me if I’m stating the obvious, but if certain people would just own up to their fascination with people, and especially people who live wild, transgressive, stupid, uninhibited, exciting, dangerous lives at the edges of the law and social convention, then maybe we wouldn’t have blurry polaroids of drugs, sex and crime, semen-stained collages and vandalized hotel rooms proclaimed iconic art.
It’s truly weird that in some circles, it’s considered ok to praise crappy pictures (so long as they show sex, drugs and rock&roll) or installations based on vandalism and bodily fluids, but it’s not ok to admit that you’re just really fascinated by the life the artist is living. Let’s just admit it: a life lived over the edge, cool or not, trendy or not, wise or not, is really interesting. It draws our attention like flies to a lightbulb. Maybe there’s something juvenile about it, maybe something else, but it’s clearly a tendency that many of us, many grown adults, have. I wonder how recent a trend this is and how much “art” is really a pretense for being fascinated by its creators. Who hasn’t occasionally wanted to experience living at its most extreme, completely uninhibited by social norms and common sense? Just to feel what it’s like? It’s understandable that when an individual who apparently does live that life comes along, we’d be interested. If we never dare to live that life ourselves — or if we’re wise enough not to try — then the next best thing is to spend time with, observe and listen to those who have. But of course you can’t admit that that’s your motivation, so you invent a pretext: you care about their art. It’s really about the art. All you want is a taste of the enthusiasm, the lack of inhibition, the fresh energy, the will to live, and so on, but, living a life very much constrained by what others think, you need a respectable facade to hide behind.
Lives are not art, but I suspect that the “performance” that is the lives of certain artists is what most of their enthusiastic audiences are really after. Certainly, I’ll admit that I don’t care much about shit (sometimes literally shit) presented as “art”, but that doesn’t stop me from being interested in the wild personality of the “artist”.
Interesting thoughts. Not sure what I think about it, but very interesting nonetheless.
