Today’s thought:
We are living in a time where we will gladly digest countless products pertaining to be celebratory of an artist, deceased. We are existing in a time where breathing artists cannot make a living. We are engaging in an indulgent practice of obtaining and soaking up ‘stuff’, quoting artists, buying their imagery on the latest surface. Filling our homes and world with bastardised versions of originals. We are encouraging this and generating piles of money for whoever owns the rights to reproduce the image.
I was 13, first year English class. Poster on the wall of Starry Night by Van Gogh. I spent countless hours looking at that poster. I went on to study his work for Higher Art Theory. I fell in love with his story. Perhaps that sentiment isn’t the first one you’d feel for such a sorrowfully portrayed individual. But it’s what happened. I fell in love. I am, to this day, in awe of how he managed to live in the face of his demons and in such a creatively productive way. I never, ever cease to feel empathy for him. Well, for that which we assume to know about him.
Consumerism has strangled art. Product manufacturing has drowned the Artist. I never bought anything with his images on it. Apart from art books, the poster on the classroom wall was enough. I’ve toyed with the idea lately of maybe a t-shirt but I’ve not brought myself to do it. Ok, I confess to purchasing a vinyl sticker of his signature for the van….
We’ve taken this artists work and churned millions of items out in his name. For what? Because we need stuff?? Because we love art?? Because we celebrate his genius? What sits wrong with me is that he’ll never gain from it. Financially or artistically, it is a dead bird to him. He is artistic poverty in its saddest form. We fell in love with him a little too late I fear…
Garter 