How have mechanical techniques affect the notion of craft and skill in art production?
I think the variety of approaches to skill and craft in the videos show that contemporary artists approach craft and skill in many different ways. There are also important distinctions in the role of the audience and how the artists treats them or thinks about their participation in the artwork. Andy Warhol is an interesting character because while he was very focused on the idea of celebrity and branding, his populist approach made his artwork have very different meanings. I believe Warhol's craft was in curation, or in crafting his persona. There is also a level of craft that must occur to create the precision that makes these handmade objects look mechanical even with a screen print. There is a craft to getting that even ink application that looks perfect. I couldn't help but think of Kim Kardashian when watching this segment, as I think in some ways she is the ultimate expression of the ideas that Andy Warhol was playing with in terms of celebrity and glamour. I also see connections in the ways that Warhol's work was considered low-brow in the same was that Kardashian is deemed trashy, and the ways they created a brand around their larger than life persona that they have created. Jeff Koons is an interesting contrast with Andy Warhol because Andy's outlandish personality seemed matched by his art. Koons looks like a very average dad who shops at Banana Republic in contrast to his very flamboyant and over the top artwork. You can definitely see the craft and skill in his segment, and it is clearly something he finds important in his own work. If craft were not important to him, he would just use prints of his digital collages, rather than having assistants make painstaking hand-made reproductions of them. The balloon creatures could just be purchased and displayed, but it is important to Koons to create these highly detailed, hand made reproductions of objects that you can just go out and buy. It definitely made me question why his process is the way it is. I think Koons also touched on something important when he discussed that art and being an artist are very powerful things that can be wielded in positive and negative ways, as explored through the piece "Bear and Policeman". This touches on an important reason why many people are averse or distrustful of contemporary art. There is an authenticity to Warhol and Koons that treats their audience as intellectual equals. This is lacking in a lot of the works from the formalist artists and in the works by Richard Prince. To me, Prince represents taking Koons's idea of artistic power to an immoral level. His work exemplifies to me what people don't like about contemporary art: That it is about the artists' egos, controversy, and bullshit artistry and not the artist's creative vision. While I don't particularly care for Warhol's work, I can see how he used ego and celebrity as a way to bring up others and spread the idea that they too could be artists. Prince's pieces seem to be about his own power. That this visual imagery is not art until someone with his level of power and status touches it and declares it so. Prince's Instagram piece takes away the agency of the artists he has taken from, while Warhol tries to give artistic agency to the everyday person. There is much meaningful commentary to be made about the visual culture of social media, and how smartphones have put creative tools into the hands of everyday people. Prince seems to miss all this and manage to make artwork all about him. I think it this narcissism that people reject, and not his lack of skill or craft in his work.
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AuthorMorgan Singleton is a secondary art educator with a Master's degree in art education. Archives
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