Is art what happens naturally? What you think on your own before it’s shared? Even before your superego can get a hold of what your dreaming id produced in the night?
Or is it what is edited and curated for the masses? Brought to the table for conversation and critique, so that it may be consumed and enjoyed by many more than just yourself.
For me, art seems to be the two sides of the same coin on the sidewalk or street, no matter where in the world I walk. And these two sides are the individual and the community, the ego and society. For as much as we wish to be ourselves, we wouldn’t want to be anything if not for others—and so too for our art.
An artist wants so much to be unique and one-of-a-kind. Take, for example, a musician who refuses to listen to “pop” music on the radio or rebukes “sell-outs” for producing music aimed at commercial success.
But if the market accurately reflects the demands of the masses, though surely not individual, it still seems to be just as much “art” as the avant-garde off in the corner trying to sniff out anything at all that hasn’t been seen before.
Originally written on September 29, 2019.