Recording Artist as Fine Artist

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The Recording Artist as Fine Artist:

An Exploration of Parallels Between Contemporary Art and Music

Joseph Hedges


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There is only one Art; painting and music are only different elds,

part of this general Art.

- Carl Friedrich Zelter 1

The visual arts and music are largely presented as two separate histories with their own

unique artists and legacies, connected only by the occasional common intellectual movement. In

the last fty years the worlds of popular music and contemporary art have collided with

increasing frequency. The dawn of the information age and ever quickening advancements in

technology have contributed to the blurring of once rigidly de ned borders between areas of

creative expression such as painting, sculpture, drawing, and music. Contemporary artists now

must employ a variety of mediums to communicate ideas, often moving freely between the audio

and visual worlds. Furthermore, the contemporary music album has become a form of ne art,

and todays pop and rock stars are as creatively innovative across a variety of mediums as any

conventional contemporary visual artist. To understand the current convergence of music and

contemporary art, it is important to rst understand the development and the links between roles

of visual arts and popular music within western society throughout history.

The visual arts did not always enjoy the same liberal arts status as music. In the middle

ages, painting was seen as a craft. In the high Renaissance, gures like Leonardo, Titian, and

Michaelangelo worked to elevate the status of painting, in some cases even advocating the

1 Morton, Marsha, and Peter L. Schmunk. The Arts Entwined: Music and Painting in the Nineteenth Century . NewYork: Garland, 2000. Print, p. 1.


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superiority of painting over poetry and music. 2 Leonardo, who was both a musician and painter,

showed that the visual composition of a painting could be conceived of in terms of mathematical

relationships--the same kinds of relationships that govern the organization of music. With the

introduction of new ideas like perspective, painting nally became a mental science, and

numbers became an important part of artists techniques. 3 For centuries thereafter, painting

enjoyed a position of great importance in Western culture as the premier visual ne art.

How we experience painting and visual arts was greatly in uenced by the Romantic

movement in music. Until the 19th century, public performances of music had encouraged

audience participation. Then, in European theaters, participation gave way to silent listening

combined with dimmed lighting to create a re ective mood, contributing to an almost religious

ambiance. Visual artists also began seeking to evoke a mood of spiritual contemplation in their

works, and museums came to resemble concert halls in their enforcement of silent reverence. 4

Today the secular ne arts remain our shared cultural religion, and the enjoyment of popular

music is the most popular mode of worship.

Museums are still places of hushed contemplation, but the art of painting has lost much of

its popular appeal due to the invention of photography and the now ubiquitous presence of new

mediums like video. The forms of visual arts are now incredibly varied and often dif cult to

categorize, and at the same time more accessible to the common person than at any other point in

human history. Booming technologies like the internet have brought a seemingly unending

stream of images, music, and video into the homes of ordinary citizens everywhere. The

2 Reti, Ladislao, and Emil M. Bu hrer. The Unknown Leonardo . New York: Abradale, 1990. Print, p. 80.

3 Ibid., p. 80.

4 Morton, Marsha, and Peter L. Schmunk. The Arts Entwined: Music and Painting in the Nineteenth Century . NewYork: Garland, 2000. Print.


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majority of these types of media can be classi ed as either commercial art or ne art.

Commercial art includes car advertisements and cereal boxes while ne art is generally

understood to be created primarily for its aesthetic purposes and judged for its meaningfulness.

The sheer amount of visual art produced and distributed today and the incredible

variation of its intended audience and purpose has made maintaining these strict categorizations

of commercial or ne art dif cult. Furthermore, with international corporations pumping more

money into creative pursuits like movies, television and internet commercials, works of

commercial art have become incredibly sophisticated and aesthetically pleasing. Many lms and

music albums are judged for their aesthetic and personal creative meaningfulness, while also

enjoying great commercial success. Independent lms and conceptual music albums especially

could be seen as walking the line between ne and commercial art. Conversely, many successful

contemporary artists like Shephard Fairey seem to be as interested in manufacturing, marketing,

and selling their product as they are with presenting a meaningful creative vision; Faireys own

website, obeygiant.com features the slogan manufacturing quality dissent since 1989. 5

Faireys unabashedly capitalist attitude and his consistent creative aesthetic has undoubtedly

been in uenced by the kind of marketing savvy and clarity of vision found in the careers of the

pop and rock stars whose portraits he exhibits and sells. Fairey has grown up in a postwar youth

culture that spawned an explosion of interest in music unlike anything in recorded human

history; that in uence is well documented in his art and the art of many other contemporary

artists.

5 Vallen, Mark. "Obey Plagiarist Shepard Fairey." Art for a Change . Dec. 2007. Web. 19 Apr. 2010. < http://www.art-for-a-change.com/Obey/index.htm >.


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Since the 1950s, the status of music in society, and its in uence on popular culture is

unparalleled. 6 While popular interest in some visual art forms including painting has been

diminished by technological advances and new media, music has simply adapted to enhance

rather than compete in these arenas. The moving picture, for example, may have done much to

devalue the painting or even the photograph, but it has created placement opportunities for

musicians. 7 The power of music in society was recently demonstrated again by the success of

American Idol, an international television phenomenon featuring singers competing for votes.

During the 2006 season, half a billion votes were cast for contestants singing on the show--about

ten times more votes cast than in any U.S. presidential election in history. 8 Today the moving

image rarely exists without music, but music endures as a powerful art form in its own right.

The capability of the visual arts to match the successes of music depends largely on how

one interprets the existing state of affairs. Despite more artists making more contemporary art in

more ways, the audience for contemporary art has been shrinking as artworks become more

conceptual and dif cult for the non-art fan to understand. The art produced today that makes its

way into museums and galleries is anything but simple. 9 At the same time, the prices of sales

for contemporary works of art are soaring. 10 This is evidence that with some exceptions the

contemporary art world now caters to a specialized audience of mostly educated, upper class

6 Blanning, T. C. W. The Triumph of Music: the Rise of Composers, Musicians and Their Art . Cambridge, Mass.:Harvard UP, 2008. Print., p. 331.

7 Ibid., p. 330.

8 Ibid., p. 330.

9 Heartney, Eleanor. Art & Today . London: Phaidon, 2008. Print, p. 13.

10 Blanning, T. C. W. The Triumph of Music: the Rise of Composers, Musicians and Their Art . Cambridge, Mass.:Harvard UP, 2008. Print, p. 329.


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people. Contemporary musicians, by contrast, have managed to retain and build an enormous

audience of people from all socioeconomic backgrounds.

Curiously, the contemporary art world has been somewhat reluctant to embrace music,

especially popular music. The souvenir shop at the Tate Modern in London, one of the foremost

contemporary art museums in the world, features many books on painting, architecture,

sculpture, cinema, design, but only a small selection of CDs; mostly interviews from visual

artists. 11 Much of the music that does become of cially accepted in the contemporary art world

is often abstract or noisy to the point of being unlistenable for the general public. A recent

exhibit at Cincinnatis Contemporary Arts Center, for example, featured C. Spencer Yeh, a

multimedia artist who creates videos as well as experimental Noise Rock. 12 Abstraction in

music has been largely unaccepted by society, while ideas about abstraction in the world of

visual arts have been so wholeheartedly assimilated into our shared visual understanding that

Pablo Picassos Demoiselles D'Avignon, a seminal work in visual abstraction, is immediately

recognizable by many, having lost much of its shock value. By contrast, Viennese Modernist

composer Arnold Schoenbergs similarly important rst atonal musical works have escaped the

general consciousness and remain dif cult to appreciate for most.

The composer Shoenberg was also a talented visual artist, and collaborated with the

Russian Modernist painter Wassily Kandinsky in unearthing connections between the visual and

11 Stubbs, David. Fear of Music: Why People Get Rothko but Don't Get Stockhausen. Winchester, UK: O, 2009.Print, p. 7.

12 "C. Spencer Yeh's Standard Deviation." CityBeat | Cincinnati News, Music, Art, Movies, Opinion, Events, Theater, Dance and Literature | . Web. 19 Apr. 2010. < http://www.citybeat.com/cincinnati/article-19800-c-spencer-yehs-stand.html >.


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sonic realms. 13 The in uence of music in the work of visual artists is apparent throughout all of

art history, from the rhythmically undulating areas of color in the works of Van Gogh (who loved

composers Wagner and Hector Berlioz) 14 , to James McNeil Whistlers painting titles Symphony

in White No. 1 or Arrangement in Grey and Black, which alluded to a strong formalist

connection between the two realms. In the 19th century the Paragone, the debate which began in

the Italian Renaissance for a the superior art form, gave way to an interest in borrowing and

retranslating between the musical and visual universes.

While the words we use to describe music and art are often the same, the process of

literal translation remains quite subjective, as no universally accepted guidebook has been

published to standardize the way these sonic and visual vocabularies are transformed.

Consequently, artists have imaginatively translated line into melody and rhythm, space into

dynamics and texture, color into timbre, and form into form, and vice versa for each of these and

more 15 . Synesthetia, or a sensation produced in one modality when a stimulus is applied to

another modality, as when the hearing of a certain sound induces the visualization of a certain

color, 16 is well documented but its peculiarities remains relatively different from artist to artist

(or musician to musician). Sixty types of synesthesia have been recorded. 17 Kandinsky is said to

13 Smith, Roberta. "Kandinsky and Schoenberg, Seen and Heard on Canvas." The New York Times . 24 Oct. 2003.Web. 19 Apr. 2010. < http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/24/arts/art-review-kandinsky-and-schoenberg-seen-and-heard-on-canvas.html?pagewanted=1 >.

14 Morton, Marsha, and Peter L. Schmunk. The Arts Entwined: Music and Painting in the Nineteenth Century . NewYork: Garland, 2000. Print, p. 182.

15 Mendelsohn, Alex. "Evenings for Educators: Music & Art." Evenings for Educators. Cincinnati Art Museum,Cincinnati. 17 Mar. 2010. Lecture.

16 Dictionary.com . Web. 19 Apr. 2010. < http://www.dictionary.com >.

17 "Types of Synesthesia." Types of Synesthesia . Web. 19 Apr. 2010. < http://home.comcast.net/~sean.day/html/types.htm >.


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were all undoubtedly in uenced by music and creating extremely musical paintings), the cultural

worlds of painting and then emerging rock and roll music could not be further apart. 21 Painters

like Pollock developed a mythic status. They were seen as heroes, and their works were seen as

high art, elevated beyond the realms of everyday human experiences. 22 It was expected that

works of art were not to be consumed by the middle class or the general populace, but by an elite

group of wealthy art patrons with enough information and cultural sensitivity to understand the

work. Rock and Roll music, however, was embraced by young people from the middle class

who yearned for personal freedom and rebellion. It was gritty and dangerous, rooted in a

fascination with an underground black culture.

By 1956 teenagers accounted for more than half of all record sales. 23 That year, Andy

Warhol showed drawings of Elvis Presley at a gallery in New York, marking one of the rst

direct references to Rock and Roll in a contemporary art exhibition. 24 Warhol was making a

living as an illustrator, which often required him to create album art for major record labels. 25

Andy Warhol is perhaps the rst example of a contemporary artist who was intimately

linked to the rock music scene. Warhols lifelong obsession with celebrity spawned hundreds of

innovative pop art portraits featuring musicians, as well as well-known album covers for bands

like the Velvet Underground and The Rolling Stones. By the mid 1960s, Warhols studio was a

21 Ibid., p 96.

22 Ibid., p. 12.

23 Rubin, David S. It's Only Rock and Roll: Rock and Roll Currents in Contemporary Art . Munich: Prestel, 1995.Print.

24 Ibid., p. 12.

25 Ibid., p. 16.


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headquarters for New York art culture. 26 At the factory, the worlds of contemporary art, music,

and performance converged, foreshadowing an increasing tendency of con uence in the avant

guard.

As rock and roll became assimilated into the mainstream in the 1960s, it became more

than just a style of music; rock and roll is often seen as a unique aesthetic, a set of values, or

even a way of life. 27 Bands like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones exempli ed these ideas.

Youth culture exploded, and young people were empowered by a new sense of community that

was unimaginable just a few years before. This empowerment, led by musicians, gave rise to

important movements in contemporary art such as feminism.

The Beatles have had an unprecedented in uence on popular consciousness. After their

rise to incredible international fame, The Beatles underwent a transformation from clean cut pop

stars to gritty, artistic, creative visionaries. 28 Their social consciousness, willingness to

experiment, and postmodern artistic sensibilities positioned them in society not as performers or

musicians but as powerful artists, in every sense of the word. This marked a major shift in the

way we think about musicians and artists.

Signi cantly, these cultural shifts in the way recording artists presented themselves and

were received were bene ted by new technologies that enabled sonic experimentation.

Multitrack recording became possible, allowing instruments to be recorded on multiple tracks at

different times, effectively ending the need for musicians to play together in the studio, and

opening up limitless possibilities of layering and texture. Today, songwriters are no longer

26 Molon, Dominic. Sympathy for the Devil: Art and Rock and Roll Since 1967 . New Haven, Conn.: Yale UP, 2007.Print, p. 13.

27 Ibid., p. 12.

28 Grossman, Loyd. A Social History of Rock Music: from the Greasers to Glitter Rock . New York: McKay, 1976.Print, p. 32.


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simply musicians but recording artists . Since albums like The Beatles Sgt. Peppers Lonely

Hearts Club Band (widely regarded as the rst concept album) and The Beach Boys Pet Sounds ,

the recording studio is more akin to painters studio than a performance hall. Recording artists

now are free to combine instruments and sounds in odd or exciting new ways, using acoustic and

digital sounds and classical and contemporary ideas. As early as the 1960s, recording artists like

Frank Zappa were employing dadaist tendencies of collage and eclecticism on music albums. 29

The album is not a recording of a performance but a xed work of art in its own right, as rich,

complex, and layered as any painting, drawing, or sculpture.

In the same way that contemporary artists such as Matthew Ritchie and Marilyn Minter

are now more frequently incorporating a variety of media into their exhibits, the recording artist

has long been expected to venture into other areas of creative expression including the creation

of album art, concert posters, websites, and music videos, while maintaining an interest in

contemporary fashion for photo shoots and stage performances. The recording artists cultural

role is essentially an aesthetic ambassador to masses. Often, due to time constraints or

limitations of technical knowledge, recording artists simply direct these other creative pursuits.

The tendency of artist as director or curator nds its parallel in the contemporary art world with

works like Matthew Barneys innovative Cremaster series. In many art lms and installations,

the contemporary artists functions primarily as a creative visionary who hires a team of

professional craftspeople to execute his or her projects. The Cremaster lms are essentially long

music videos. The music video, an important part of the recording artists creative repertoire,

can be seen as ne art videos in that they often feature nonlinear narratives and unusual imagery.

29 Watson, Ben. "Frank Zappa as Dadaist: Recording Technology and the Power to Repeat Frank Zappa as Dadaist:Recording Technology and the Power to Repeat." 15.1 (1996): 109-37. Routledge, Part of the Taylor & FrancisGroup . Web.


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Barneys Cremaster lms may focus on the visual rather than audio information, but they employ

the kind of extravagant set design and editing techniques used by recording artists in big budget

music videos since the 1980s.

It is not surprising that many visual artists are also accomplished musicians, and vice

versa. Famous recording artists who also create visual art are Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Kim

Gordon, Miles Davis, Tony Bennett, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, David Bowie, David Byrne,

to name just a few. Some recording artists like Marilyn Manson use their visual art as another

arm of their brand or aesthetic practice. Mansons art tends to be a strikingly similar

aesthetically to his music, a fact that he uses to great advantage by selling his artwork on his

of cial website. Many recording artists have been accused of using fame as a substitute for

talent to advance their visual art careers. 30 Some, like Joni Mitchell have asserted that they were

visual artists rst, and musicians later. These frequent accusations may signal some reluctance

within the art world or society at large to accept the recording artist as ne artist or as someone

making high art. However, it is not uncommon for bands to be formed in art schools, or while

studying visual arts. Art school attendees include powerhouse musicians The Beatles, Talking

Heads, The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, and more recent recording artists like M.I.A. and

Imogen Heap. However, these artists seem to have traded their status as future contemporary

artists for pop stars. Unlike painter and sculptor, singer and songwriter, or movie star and

fashion designer, the two categories of contemporary artist and pop star seem to be mutually

exclusive.

30 Cochrane, Lauren. "Does This Art Rock?" The Guardian | Guardian.co.uk . 23 Oct. 2007. Web. 19 Apr. 2010..


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Although many important visual artists such as 80s neo-expressionist Jean Michel

Basquiat were also musicians, Laurie Anderson, David Byrne, and Patti Smith are the only three

American recording artists to have successfully moved from the world of contemporary art into

pop music and maintained their contemporary art credibility. 31 Remarkably, Anderson is the

only performance artist to have a hit record: the album Big Science, released in 1982. Or perhaps

Anderson is simply the only recording artist given the label of performance artist by the art

world. In books about contemporary art, much has been made of Andersons innovative fusion

of sound and video. Anderson is said to write her own music and vocals; and her unique stage

presence is enhanced through her innovative use of sound, light, motion, and the use of

projections--strong graphic images combined with photographs. She uses any and all methods to

convey her message. 32 However, the above description could be applied to almost any

recording artist working on a national level today. Recording artists are often involved in

selecting or creating video projections for their live shows. Contemporary rock bands like Sigur

Rs employ projections on their tours and in videos. Madonna recently used contemporary artist

Marilyn Minters videos at her live concerts. Still, only Laurie Anderson enjoys the art worlds

distinction of being a performance artist.

David Byrne, who attended the Rhode Island School of Design with all the members of

the Talking Heads, has also been interested in expressing the connections between music and

contemporary art. A recent David Byrne installation Playing the Building explores the

possibility of an interior space as an instrument. Mechanical devices are connected to the

31 Frith, Simon, and Howard Horne. Art into Pop . London: Methuen, 1987. Print. p. 32.

32 Paul, Christiane. Digital Art . New York: Thames & Hudson, 2003. Print. p. 283


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building, which is connected to an organ, allowing a user to play the space. 33 Contemporary

artist Tim Hawkinson also recently transformed an interior space into a sound producing

installation using the idea of an organ as a springboard. 34 Byrnes Playing the Buildingand

Hawkinsons berorgan embody an interest in unifying sound and visual experiences, as well as

the idea of an instrument or performance as a part of the visual experience through its particular

form and sheer magnitude. Hawkinson, an accomplished installation artist and sculptor, is also a

musician and maker of musical instruments.

Laurie Anderson and David Byrne seem to be exceptions to the rule. There may be a

cultural prejudice against accepting recording artists as ne artists. There is an equally puzzling

prejudice against contemporary artists in mainstream media. These distinctions are socially

constructed and in a way arbitrary, as evidenced by the multitude of recording artists with cross-

media pro ciency and art school connections. Also of note are social relationships and

marriages such as Icelandic singer/songwriter Bjrk and spouse Matthew Barney, Laurie

Anderson and singer/songwriter Lou Reed, or most famously, John Lennon and acclaimed

contemporary artist Yoko Ono.

The pursuits of contemporary art and popular music are framed as academic or pure art

versus commercial, when in reality, the recording artists motivations may be quite similar or

exactly the same as those of the contemporary artist: personal expression and money. There is an

attitude, however, in the art world of art for arts sake that tends to reject the notion of art

making that leads to nancial gain. This attitude is occasionally echoed in the sentiments of

punk and indie rock musicians. However, since early in rock and roll history there were rock

33 Byrne, David. "Playing the Building." DAVIDBYRNE.COM . Web. 19 Apr. 2010. < http://www.davidbyrne.com/art/art_projects/playing_the_building/ >.

34 "Tim Hawkinson's Uberorgan." The Getty . Web. 19 Apr. 2010. < http://www.getty.edu/visit/events/hawkinson.html >.


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stars. The cover of Rolling Stone Magazine is seen as the pinnacle of musical achievement. For

musicians and fans, there is an expectation of success in music, and success is not often regarded

as an obstacle to creative expression. Conversely, a plethora of artists from Tool to Radiohead

enjoyed even greater artistic freedom and made even more innovative records after their initial

success. For the visual artist, however, there is a cultural expectation of poverty and a stigma

attached to success. Figures like Thomas Kinkaid reinforce this vision of the successful

contemporary artist as commercial sellout. Kinkaids art is extremely popular with Americans,

yet his art is viewed as kitsch and without substance by many other contemporary artists and art

critics. For many contemporary artists, the path to success may be perceived as being tied to

artistic compromise.

Perhaps the enduring distinctions between artists and recording artists are also

perpetuated by our academic art institutions which frequently place tradition over practical

commercial value or public demand. Universities rarely offer academic courses concerning the

creation of pop or rock music, an activity which provides an opportunity for enormous nancial

and social rewards, yet teach historical techniques in the visual arts such as wet lab photograph

developing and printmaking, activities that are dangerous and for which there exist little

application opportunities in the commercial world.

Despite these sociological framing mechanisms, the recording artist and the

contemporary visual artist are the same type of character. In postmodern society, being an artist

is an existential condition; it is seen as a natural disposition or inclination, where medium has

become increasingly arbitrary. 35 One could argue the importance of specialization for the sake of

35 Lovejoy, Margot. Postmodern Currents: Art and Artists in the Age of Electronic Media . Upper Saddle River, NJ:Prentice Hall, 1997. Print, p. 278.


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thoroughness of exploration and accumulation of skill in a given medium, but the facts point

toward an increasing trend away from specialization and towards assimilation, as artists of all

sorts grow up in a world where information--and information about art-making--is free and

readily available. Additionally, through computer aided rendering, recording, and mixing

software, new images and sounds can be created so rapidly that their impact has been weakened.

Thus the challenge for a postmodern artist working in any medium becomes how to process and

reassemble so much audiovisual information, and so many skills into a new cohesive,

marketable, creative vision.

One might argue that technology has propped up creative endeavors so completely that

actual skill has become impossible to discern from production value. This manifests itself in

gures like visual artist Shepard Fairey and recording artist Brittany Spears. There are serious

questions about Faireys ability to draw 36 and Brittany Spears skills as a singer. These are

troublesome concerns for some since historically, we have thought of contemporary artists as

possessors of drawing skill, and recording artists as possessors of vocal ability. To further

complicate this issue, the postmodern audience is more tolerant when it comes to matters of

authenticity, as evidenced by increasing appropriation in contemporary art paralleled with

sampling in popular music. The use of Autotune on the lead vocal tracks in popular music may

be the ultimate manifestation of this lack of concern for authenticity, as a once accepted

corrective tool is now frequently used as a familiar effect.

What is lost in terms of authenticity for some artists may be gained in the ability for other

artists to innovate and combine mediums. Contemporary art now includes light and audio sensor

controlled environments, lm, interactive paintings, interactive sculptures, and every other kind

36 Vallen, Mark. "Obey Plagiarist Shepard Fairey." Art for a Change . Dec. 2007. Web. 19 Apr. 2010. < http://www.art-for-a-change.com/Obey/index.htm >.


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of inter-media creative explorations imagined and not yet invented. For the skilled artist,

technology is a tool that enables art to be created and modi ed more quickly and with greater

ease. Contemporary artist Matthew Ritchie creates installations that combine elements of video,

painting, sculpture, and interactive games, which are all rooted in his unique style of drawing.

Jn r Birgisson, Icelandic singer/songwriter has just embarked on a tour that is said to bring

together the worlds of lm, art installation, theatre performance, animation and live concert. 37

The recording artist pre gures the contemporary artist in many ways. Since the

introduction of multi-tracking technology, pop and rock musicians rapidly became increasingly

artistic in their presentation and vision, and have aligned themselves closely with trends in the

ne art world, often greatly in uencing contemporary art. Contemporary artists catering to a

shrinking audience of art critics, artists, and the social elite now nd themselves increasingly

incorporating elements of movement and sound into their exhibitions, while more

unapologetically selling their brand or concept beside their individual artworks. Today the

successful contemporary artist may often be more accurately described as a producer, director, or

curator than a painter or sculptor. Similarly, the successful recording artist is often pushed

beyond singing and playing an instrument to become a marketer, music video director, or fashion

designer, adapting their personal aesthetic to the creative task at hand. Historically, the

distinctions between types of visual arts have been rigidly culturally de ned: painter, sculptor,

photographer, printmaker, etc. These categories are overlaid with thousands of years of

associations and rules, written and unwritten. By contrast, the audio artist (one person capable of

overlaying layers of audio information in a recorded, xed form) has only existed for a hundred

years, while multi-tracking technology has only existed for fty years. In that brief time the

37 "Jnsi Concerts." Jnsi - Official Site . Web. 19 Apr. 2010. < http://jonsi.com/concerts >.


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album has provided a centerpiece for the recording artist to build a brand and creative vision

around, creating an enormous boom in the sale and distribution of popular music, as well as an

explosion of the cultural in uence of music and musicians.

For better or worse, barriers are being rede ned as education, technology, and

occasionally fame and money allow modern ne artists and recording artists the resources to

move more freely between mediums. 38 This has become not a luxury but a necessity for ne

artists attempting to compete economically and creatively for an audience accustomed to

interactive video games, 3D televisions, and unlimited access to videos. In this new kind of

hyper-sensory artistic world, for both contemporary artists and recording artists, mediums are

ephemeral; concepts are king.

38 Heartney, Eleanor. Art & Today . London: Phaidon, 2008. Print.


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www.davidbyrne.com/art/art_projects/playing_the_building/ >.

"C. Spencer Yeh's Standard Deviation." CityBeat | Cincinnati News, Music, Art, Movies,

Opinion, Events, Theater, Dance and Literature | . Web. 19 Apr. 2010. < http://

www.citybeat.com/cincinnati/article-19800-c-spencer-yehs-stand.html >.

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19 Apr. 2010. < http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/artblog/2007/oct/23/

doesthisartrock >.

Mendelsohn, Alex. "Evenings for Educators: Music & Art." Evenings for Educators. Cincinnati

Art Museum, Cincinnati. 17 Mar. 2010. Lecture.

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Frith, Simon, and Howard Horne. Art into Pop . London: Methuen, 1987. Print.

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Heartney, Eleanor. Art & Today . London: Phaidon, 2008. Print.

"Jnsi Concerts." Jnsi - Official Site . Web. 19 Apr. 2010. < http://jonsi.com/concerts >.

Lovejoy, Margot. Postmodern Currents: Art and Artists in the Age of Electronic Media . Upper

Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1997. Print.

Molon, Dominic. Sympathy for the Devil: Art and Rock and Roll Since 1967 . New Haven, Conn.:

Yale UP, 2007. Print.

Morton, Marsha, and Peter L. Schmunk. The Arts Entwined: Music and Painting in the

Nineteenth Century . New York: Garland, 2000. Print.

O'Meally, Robert G. The Jazz Cadence of American Culture . New York: Columbia UP, 1998.

Print.

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Rubin, David S. It's Only Rock and Roll: Rock and Roll Currents in Contemporary Art . Munich:

Prestel, 1995. Print.

Smith, Roberta. "Kandinsky and Schoenberg, Seen and Heard on Canvas." The New York Times .

24 Oct. 2003. Web. 19 Apr. 2010. < http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/24/arts/art-review-

kandinsky-and-schoenberg-seen-and-heard-on-canvas.html?pagewanted=1 >.

Stubbs, David. Fear of Music: Why People Get Rothko but Don't Get Stockhausen . Winchester,

UK: O, 2009. Print.

"Tim Hawkinson's Uberorgan." The Getty . Web. 19 Apr. 2010. < http://www.getty.edu/visit/

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Recording Artist as Fine Artist