Avant garde & Marginalism- Where we are headed?

~ a discourse for art connoisseurs ~

The power of literature and consciousness has been reinforced. People who have wondered about the ultimate motive and true objective of life, trying to find or validate meaning into their few tens of years of existence, will agree with me. It might seem obvious to all of us, who are avid readers or admirers of art in general and spend a whole lot of time involving and indulging themselves in the 'finer' aspects of life. It is obvious but is it really?

The world's changing. The emphasis is on science and technology, management and business. Even art and culture has been branded a new name "Entertainment". To put it straight, everything has been commercialized so that the value of money in every little creative twig we create is declared and understood. Would art work with commercialization? The question we then would ponder is centralism or centralistic art with marginalism and marginalistic art.

Creativity is our license to exercise the brain. It is like finding the inner voice, making it speak, write, think and express. Whether its expression and the form it takes will be useful to others or to a wider set of people is definitely not the question to ponder while such delivery is being made. However in a commercialized, centralistic art form, I cannot envisage how we would not be beguiled to be deterministic and unspontaneous with our expression, choosing to express only that which the "market surveys" suggest people would appreciate or modifying our inner voice to cater to the needs of a generation. This being said, great Art has been appreciated irrespective of its time and relevance. We are aware of a number of individuals who have managed to secure a dedicated set of followers although they have been unsuccessful in amassing a wide mass appeal.

At the same time as Susan Sontag points out, the gap between high culture and low/pop culture needs to be diminished and she found a connection between mass appeal and artistic rendition much to the surprise of all of us. Is this indeed a fair judgement of art? I would have to say we can always choose to be opinionated. In today's context, her statements are probably ill suited because culture and art have seen paradigm shifts since the sixtees and it is the more centralistic art which is looked more seriously and effusively than before. The statement may not make sense as I used centralistic which by definition is something with a wide appeal but what has happened really is that the so called "high culture" is being marginalized so much under the weight of the commercial juggernauts that it has lost itself in oblivion and pop culture has taken its stand both as popular as well as significant works of art.

Everything about this generation patronizes fame, value and money above true depth and content in art works. Standards have been set to look at some recognized patrons of art and they have been valued as the so called "classics". Everything else which is new, colorful and happening has been promoted, marketed and advertised. Consequently a handful of people who indulge in deterministic art have found themselves in the best selling lists, platinum record sales or multimillion dollar movie franchises. Nothing that is personal, rooted and maybe obscure for its own worthy reasons stand a chance to compete and reach out against its heavier, giant sized peers. Thus there's a possibility and a distinct one too that we may not be discovering our Kafka's /Camus' or Leonard Cohen/Suzanne Vega's or Bergman/ Bunuel's of this generation. In a competitive and open market, art forms are fighting against each other and nullifying away all the small nuggets and niches that may exist in nooks and corners of artdom. Keeping this paradigm shift in mind, I wanted us to think back and ponder how some of us who care could refocus and re-energize our directions towards the marginal writers, singers and film makers and re-recognize them albeit through events like the Sundance film festival, a celebration of independent film making.

The concern comes from the fear that lesser and lesser people enroll in colleges to study fine and liberal arts as compared to engineering and science, a trend reflecting how free will and desires have been reversed in a wave of events which provokes bigger and better futures in one as opposed to the others. Some can argue that who needs a college degree to be a artist or better still how many college degree holders of art ultimately comprise the canon of artistic works. I would counter argue saying the diminishing importance of arts in colleges is a sign of its diminishing importance in society. Besides personal appreciation, one of the best places where art is engulfed, dissected and comprehended are these colleges and institutes which have curriculum dedicated to the advancement of art by voluntary contributions from those young minds who wish to study and understand them and most importantly, enjoy them. I know this sounds far fetched and I am a proponent of finding giant elephants in insect hives but it is hardly a reason to deny the obvious shifts in trends that modern society lets us to observe thanks to the internet.

So the scary premonition is a time no later than 30-40 years when a lot of things we care about now may completely lose in its revered existence amongst young minds and mainstream in itself would have made divisions within itself of what is central and what is marginal, thus ruling out the marginal and sometimes the "high art" completely. This is of course with the working assumption that high art is necessarily marginal, a ideology not always true and one that is supported based on the hypothesis that masses are not interested in avant garde and marginal work that gives the right to call such art forms 'high art'.

A concluding remark in this direction to all cautious readers would be - follow your hearts and not trends and you may discover things that you never possibly imagined you could ever do and also the sheer pleasures may be too overwhelming to overcome for a long time, long enough for you too care.


© Nothing Personal. April 19, 2011.

Reviews

[Siddhartha]

You have very eloquently and articulated the despair of this generation of artists; and the dilemma of whether to give in to the trends and mass appeal of the times or to chart one's own path irrespective of lost fame and fortune. Auteurs like Kafka, Camus,Bunuel, Bergman,et al would find it difficult to survive now,not that they were any more famous in their times but because of the consumerist culture that has now set in.Art is now a fast food culture and artists vending machines. I do not know if redemption is indeed in sight but your brilliant article has set me thinking.

[.]

here here..I agree that we have diluted art in a culture of fast everything, although the balance is required to give a perspective on the times we live it, and it reflects perfectly the society we have carved ourselves. The internet has given the nobody in society a voice and that cannot be a bad thing surely? We should all follow our own artistic truth and we will be cushioned by culture because just as the times had a basis on art and literature in the 3rd and 4th centuries - it will effectively have the same effect on our ideals and goals..A very interesting and concise write giving more than a little food for thought. I thank you