7 - The Role of the Artist - Intro

7/31/2019 7 - The Role of the Artist - Intro

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Im Not ThereThe Role of the Artist: Introduction


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Focus Questions

1. What does artistic autonomy mean?

2. What is the difference between the committed

artist and the autonomous artist and where do weplace Dylan in this?

3. How can the artist be seen as a projection of the

audiences ego?


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But first...

What do you think the role of the artist is? i.e. what

should artists be doing/achieving?

- social commentator?

- entertainer?

- provocateur?

- should they have a message?

- do they have an obligation to represent a community?

- how does the idea of payment change things?


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An opinion...

The work of art,

does not have an

end...But the reason

is that it is an end.

- Jean-Paul Sartre


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Sartres attitude

When we unpack his idea, we get this belief that the

intention of art isnt to achieve anything, i.e. it is not a

means to an end, it isnt intended to achieve

anything.

The reason, as Sartre sees it, is that the work of art,

when it arrives, has already completed its purpose

simply by existing. Were not to expect anything elsefrom it because it has already done what it set out to

do.


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The Committed vs. The

Autonomous

Committed Art Autonomous Art

This means the politically

committed artist. Acommitted artist is

committed to a cause, they

have a message, they see

their art as a means to

deliver an idea, lesson, etc.to an audience.

Autonomous art has no

purpose. It doesnt set outto achieve anything as it is

being made. It may have a

message, but its not the

artists message. Its primary

purpose is to exist and beuseless.


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A Question...

I dont really have an answer to this question:

Is Im Not There a committed work or an autonomous work?

Do you think it deliberately sets out to teach something/illustrate

a message? Or is it more interested in just existing and allowing

audiences to do whatever they want?


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The critique of committed art...

The general critique of politically committed art is that it gets

sucked into the world and stops being the piece of art that was

initially created because it is only seen as its message and not

the work art. The idea is that a committed work of art is too busybeing something else to actually be a piece of art.

The classic example is propaganda...


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The idea is that the poster is

too busy with its pro-

Stalin/pro-communism

message to be able to beappreciated as a piece of art.

But a Rothko painting on the

other hand...


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...is entirely useless, in that it

is a political void. It is devoid

of an immediate message andso its art-ness is able to exist

without impediment.


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Dylan got this...

We see it expressed quite explicitly in the Jude Quinn

sequences. His conversations with Keenan Jones are the films

most striking commentaries on the purpose of the artist.

Were going to deal with these in more detail throughout this

section of the unit, this will just be an initial discussion...


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Insert clip of Jude in press conference


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Insert clip of Jude and Keenan Jones arguing


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Why do we want?

To paraphrase Jude, why should we care whether he cares?

Why are we so interested in the artists attitude towards their

fans?

Why, when an artist abandons what we knew them for, do we

seem to see ourselves as justified in being upset?


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Projection

Freud had this belief that we will project false accusations,

information, etc. onto an individual for the purpose of maintaining

a self-created illusion.

The illusion is that weve found someone who understands how

we feel about the world and can articulate our thoughts about the

world. The idea is that we will falsely accuse the artist of walking

away from us, taking away that connection we once had,

abandoning their beliefs, all in order to protect that initial illusion.We protect it because the only other alternative is to believe that

we were wrong from the beginning and in fact the artist was not

my kindred spirit.

Documents

7 - The Role of the Artist - Intro