Being an artist in a time of meaninglessness. That thought just jumped into my head when looking at past art customers who hypothetically are wondering why I haven’t been producing. This is all projection, I don’t know if they wondered that or not. But it’s the inner dialogue I have going on in my head.
I worked for a clothing firm — it was a fast fashion brand and I recall feeling really put off of the slapping names like New York on a tee. Or something made up like ‘Moe’s Garage, Pittsburg’. One of our roles was to generate nostalgic feeling tees, the sort one would find at a second shop in the 1990’s. Nothing means anything. Wearing a tee that says New York or Paris is all meaningless. It doesn’t mean — oh wow, Moe’s Garage in Pittsburg — an actual tee made for Moe’s Garage — how cool, I love the look. How awesome that I found that tee! And it fits!
Now you can find that tee in all sizes, in blue, black, white or yellow. Or, wow, New York, when did you go? It’s all fake. Almost everything is fake. The specialness is gone.
There is a huge disconnect taking place. I, for example, accomplished a duration of doing pilates that earned me a tee. It’s not spiritual like Yoga claims to be but it’s in the same ballpark. The t-shirt was made in Bangladesh. The pilates mantra is inner strength, focus, clarity etc…. But hang on — I need to get some tees made in what is quite likely a sweat shop to give the people doing pilates a token to their hard work. Some underpaid workers made this tee for me and they themselves could never afford to take the class — in fact likely they don’t even know what pilates is.
Pilates the exercise feels like an authentic experience. The t-shirt however knocks it down many pegs. Seriously, as a society can we not make a t-shirt — is it that hard. It’s not building a rocket ship, it’s a t-shirt.
It’s like our world in the west is more like a movie set. Things may look authentic, but it’s a veneer. Behind it is a void.
So being an artist today is complicated. Of course all through the ages the arts have been the counter to the norm — it’s there to push us to see things differently or to understand the place that we are in. So much of art today is how well you do on instagram. It’s about likes.
Is it about quality? Or is it about likes.
There is a lot of great art out there — but it’s kind of like facts. There are facts and then there are alternative facts. It’s hard to know which is which unless you force yourself to be informed.
So much art is like those tees my team created for fast fashion. It has this void of meaning.
But that in itself is interesting i suppose. Maybe this is the transition period? Maybe ‘likes’ is the new art?
I wish Warhol was alive to critique this — it’s like what he envisioned for his art but it’s off the rails now.
Maybe it’s time to let go of ego and just jump into the void like jumping from the stage at a concert and let go entirely of the wheel.
I don’t know.
Maybe I should stop whinging and start producing again.
