Famous artist didn't do his own painting?

[wowfudge]

Just heard the new children's laureate being interviewed on the radio and she used to work for Damien Hurst. She said she mixed colours and had to paint lots of little circles. If that's the Hirst work I'm thinking of, does that mean he comes up with ideas but doesn't execute them himself? A bit like a couture designer I suppose. I always thought artists did their own art.

Noble giraffe, I do not know enough about Picasso' ceramics to be able to comment in an informed way. For instance I don't know what the concept was behind them, whether they were a commission, and if so who for? How many he did, how he displayed them, it he made the plates too etc etc etc . All of those things would effect my analysis of it. But on a first impression look at that photo, out of context, my five year definitely couldn't do that.

My 4 year old has certainly produced faces not far off that, and there's a pottery place near us where you give them a paintbrush and a plate and it gets fired in a kiln to look professional (artists not expected to make their own plates!).

Don't know if it was commissioned, Picasso produced billions of plates, the guy was a machine. Most of them were definitely better - this looks like he was phoning it in.

If an artist designs a plate, someone else paints it, and then they are produced on a mass scale, is each plate a work of art as they've all had exactly the same amount of artist involvement?

Hey giraffe, I’ll see your plate and raise you a kitchen tile.

You’re right that Picasso was a very prolific ceramicist, mainly towards the end of his life, and my understanding, such as it is, is that his ceramics were kind of a bit of fun actually, executed mainly while he was on summer break and depicting things he just liked (nature, bullfighting, women, etc). I think the artistry is considered to be as much in his handling of the medium and materials as in their decorative qualities, though my own knowledge of ceramics is a bit crap and so I can’t elaborate much.

Your example is particularly naive in fairness, but yes, technically, a 5yo probably could have done it. Don’t you think you’re missing the point, though? Like I said upthread, art of ideas is concerned with the meaning or provocation that resides in an art work. Even if we could all agree a 5yo could have physically done it, surely we can also all agree that it wouldn’t have been executed with the same intentions as when Picasso made it, it wouldn’t have had the same creative or cultural context that it undoubtedly has when considered in conjunction with his other works and their meanings, and therefore wouldn’t hold as much interest for anyone except perhaps the artist’s mother. To argue otherwise is equivalent in my view to declaring that the poignant, evocative, stream-of-consciousness piece of writing your teenager did in English last term is highly comparable to TS Eliot’s Burnt Norton. Just as an example. Which it obviously isn’t going to be. To that extent authorship does matter, yes, although to consider authorship purely in terms of the manual act of creation (as, eg, Damien Hirst) is also missing the point imo.

why is

"My five year old could do that"

such a popular and common statement anyway?

It baffles me for two reasons

1- the context that surrounds an artwork is essential to it's meaning. So obviously an artwork by Picasso is very different to one by a random five year old
2- why is the art of 5 year olds considered to be an insult? In the main, 5 year olds are brilliant artists

And in answer to your question, I suspect each plate would have the same sort of artistic as a reproduced poster of a painting. Maybe a bit more since it's ceramic. Maybe the equivalent of a lithograph of a painting. ( which was very very common in centuries past for popular works by folk like Constable to be reproduced and sold in the form of prints. although the prints wouldn't be considered to be by constable.

But it would depend on why the artist who designed the plates was having them painted and reproduced. There could be many reasons and contexts would would change the authorship, value and artistic interpretation.

It's not a simple answer. And certainly not one I feel comfortable with
Trying to answer definatively without more research.

Well, and, if I understand giraffe’s question correctly, we need to unpack the term ‘value’ a bit. If we’re talking about artistic value, and if for a given art work the value lies in its meaning and cultural significance (as opposed to, say, its brushwork), then a series of works made by a range of hands in theory do have similar value, plus the fact of it being a series has a value of its own. To play devil’s advocate, you might even say that the use of a team of assistants, if considered controversial, has a cultural meaning in itself (Hirst’s spot paintings would be an excellent example), which might actually increase the artistic value, particularly with hindsight.

Obviously though, the term ‘value’ in relation to art commonly relates to money, and I think it would be fair to say that a series of pieces made by someone/multiple someones other than the artist would be valued differently (usually lower) than anything made by the artist’s own hand. (Although again, Hirst’s spot paintings are an interesting example, because depending on which assistant executed them they’ve held their value differently. Many of them were made by Rachel Howard, who is now a rated artist in her own right, so potentially a Hirst/Howard could eventually be worth more than a mere Hirst.) Fundamentally, though, monetary value and intrinsic value shouldn’t really be confused. The idea that something created ‘by the artist’s own hand’ is worth more has more to do with a kind of autograph hunting mentality than any understanding of art. If you are collecting sweaty football shirts, one worn by George Best will be worth more than one of my son’s, but that doesn’t make him an artist. (We can argue about Bobby Moore.)

The role of celebrity in relation to authorship is interesting in itself actually. There’s a been a 100% assumption on this thread so far that the named/credited artist is the master and the assistant is the student or servant, but it isn’t necessarily so. If you look at an artist such as John Piper, say, whose career spanned a great many media, there was often a need for him to collaborate with artists and craftspeople who had skills he lacked, in order to realise his visions. Much of his stained glass for example was made by Patrick Reyntiens, who is (was?) about the most famous stained glass artist of the C20. I’m guessing few people without a niche interest in ecclesiastical art have heard of him though. Stained glass is a really interesting example as it’s a highly technical medium that’s piqued the interest of a succession of painters. Undoubtedly Marc Chagall didn’t manufacture his own glass, but it bears his unmistakeable style - and his signature. Generally, commissioned stained glass isn’t available on the open market, either, so it’s possible to consider issues of authorship and value free of the tedious pall cast on fine art by investment value.

Anyway, I’m probably being tedious myself now, sorry.

YABU.

You seem to imply that a successful artist who doesn't produce all elements of his/her art work is not a 'real' artist. In the UK at least to become a renowned artist one has to have been through some of the major art schools, passed the courses, exhibited etc. it involves rather a lot of work, sweat and blood.

Once an artist is established it's fair enough to have assistants helping, this has always happened not just during the renaissance but throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.

This enables also younger artists (students, newly graduates) to gain invaluable experiences and is lots of fun unless you work with a crazy artist.

It's just how it is.

OP are you one of the people who say that video, film, installations is not art as nobody actually used a paintbrush'?

Pictures to break up the endless text.

Btw, interesting question re current trends, @thecatfromjapan, especially the example re built-in obsolescence of materials. I think what I see as the single most significant trend in C21 art is what I would call ‘projects of the self’, a kind of externalisation of personal qualities and characteristics into the fabric of artwork. Contemporary art imo (and contemporary social culture actually) has become increasingly theatrical - live/performance art, multimedia ‘experiences’, immersive installations, etc - and what I am seeing increasingly is the role of the artist becoming comparable to that of the method actor, with the mining of personal experience or information forming the basis for the creative act. For example, I worked recently with an artist who, following in well-worn footsteps obviously, creates life-size self-portraits. What’s distinctive about her practice is that she then takes these portraits everywhere with her – the shops, the tube, friends’ houses – literally dragging them behind her, so that the fabric of the portrait becomes weathered in a way that acts as a proxy for life experience. An artist like this is challenging you to accept or reject her as a person as well as to accept or reject her work. As a development, I see this kind of art as analogous to the cult of the individual that underpins contemporary popular culture, eg reality TV (Big Brother, Kardashians etc) or social media (selfies, pictures of your dinner etc), drives personal aspirations (the pursuit of fame or lifestyles of the rich-and-famous, little girls all doing stage school on Saturday mornings), and also pervades a great deal of public life at this point, eg the charismatic political leader – in other words, the idea that one can be celebrated or even loved not for what one has done or thought but purely because of who one ‘is’. In that sense, contemporary art in this mould is just reflecting the anxieties that make up the sociocultural zeitgeist.

Anyway, I’ll shurrup now. Seem to have hijacked the thread.

I'm diving in, and have to dive straight back out, so this is going to be disjointed, but Please don't shut up Mrs Lupo! You're doing an excellent job of talking about some pretty complex things without setting out to exclude, or silence people. (Kudos to everyone else doing the same too) That in itself is an art form!
I don't currently have the language skills, but like many, are perfectly capable (generally*) of understanding those that do, and am finding your contributions interesting.

I’m guessing few people without a niche interest in ecclesiastical art have heard of him though.
Different niche, but he's pretty well known in Liverpool 8.

Sorry if I'm being dim, but Generally, commissioned stained glass isn’t available on the open market, either,* Do you mean after it was originally commissioned it doesn't usually turn up for resale and if it does, it's within specialist markets only?

Your last post is incredibly helpful to me as I try understand and marry up what's going on in society and what interests me or doesn't, learn how to justify it on an intellectual level for my degree, and explain my own (instinctive) stuff, but not lose touch with who and what I am, and what I deeply believe in, including that art should be for everyone.

Later on if you're around I'd love to get further into 'the cult of the individual' (especially vs things) and where it's going....

Catfromjapan you wouldn't be talking about grime art and Faux Fauvism as an (argued) beginning of a deeper movement, and thermochromic paint would you?

Wowfudge you've started an excellent thread, and personally I find how art and artists etc are perceived, and why, (and how gaps can be bridged rather than widened!) interesting in it's own right, total credit to you for it.

WheelieBin, I meant that architectural stained glass tends to remain in situ and thus isn't available to change hands. Therefore remains outwith the gallery/auction house/museum system and can't readily have a bounty put on its head. It just makes it easier to focus on artistic and cultural value without getting sucked into OMG a Chagall! What's it worth?!

And yes, OMG, the Liverpool glass!

Sorry Mrs Lupo last night went sideways and I've only just got through the door. Thank you for that, it was what I thought you meant but wasn't 100% sure.

messedupwheeliebin I'm not sure, to be honest. The picture I saw was using fluoro paint, and I was interested in the use of non-standard paint. Do tell more about grime, neo-fauvism and thermo-thingy, though - please!

MrsLupo I am so sad that in my many wanderings using the tube, I've never encountered your contemporary artist.

OP this is all pretty standard practice :)

I'm going to try elaborating my last post a bit in an effort to entice more artists and experts to the thread.

People have talked a bit about Renaissance practices of painting and also about how changes in available technologies drive art production.

We've talked a bit about how part of the skill we appreciate in older paintings lies in the skill demonstrated by the artist (and even studio) in mixing the materials to make paint.

I think there is a big change in the early C20 in the availability of ready-mixed paint, and then a subsequent controversy about whether artists using this ready-mixed, ready-prepared paint were, actually, artists, and whether the artistry in art, it's validity as Art, as diminished by the incorporation of this non-individualised, non-bespoke, product into the finished piece.

I think part of what Damien Hirst's spot pictures is 'about' is this debate - old though it might be. Aren't they drawn from colour samples???

That's what I quite liked about the fluoro paint, and the spray-painted pictures. Is that part of what is going on with the use of thermochromic paint, too? Thermochromic paint sound as though you have to do things with the picture, too - like touch it! - or place it in non-temperature controlled environmnents - eek! - for it to react. And it has touches of the tackier end of rave culture, all of which sounds like a bit of an affront.

i really like George Shaw's paintings (he didn't win the turner Prize), who uses teeny, tiny brushes and the paint you use for model aircraft - hobbyists' paint - for his pictures.

The big essay on how technology drives changes in ideas about art is Walter Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Reproduction'. He is the person mist closely associated with the idea that photography brought about a radical shift in what we ask Art to do now. The availability of photography changed what we think of as the 'aura' of the work of Art.

The technological shifts I've listed above, around paint, are much smaller and just make minor changes in the production of Art - a sort of small skirmishing about at the boundaries - localised arguments about the placing of a fencepost here, or moving of the boundary about 10 ft outwards there - the Walter Benjamin essay suggests that the impact of photography was far, far greater, deeper and more profound.

Do people still agree with Walter Benjamin? Do they think photography was the big driver of change?

Surely the rise of the availability of tertiary education must play a part? And when did critical literature about Art start to have an impact? Indeed, when did it begin to be a thing? Is that also congruent with the impact of reproduction?

OK so I get all that, I've read yer Bourdieu and all that. But surely there should be some degree of technical mastery involved in art? Otherwise what distinguishes Mr. Hirst's concept from one I might come up with, other than the white cube / his social and artistic capital?

Gauche - we're back to the problem that a definition like that doesn't work for conceptual pieces. Where does it leave Duchamp's urinal? Or Richard Long's work? (Just the first two examples that sprung into my head). I think you pretty much have to start seeing art as contextual and constructed once you start looking at stuff like that... (This does NOT mean a five year old could do it!)

Gauche I don't think of artworks as autonomous objects any more. I think of them as networks. The art object, and the artist, can be thought of as networks, or as nodes in a network.

If you sat in your living room, thinking about the history of art and the current state of play, and came up with an interesting concept, which you then executed, it wouldn't have the same force as, say, Damien Hirst doing it because you are positioned differently in the network, so what you produce quite simply cannot have the same meaning and intention - you are located differently; the network in which your art production takes place, the meaning it articulates, is different.

That is how mimicry and parody is not the same as fakery.

Damien Hirst's "For the love of God" is interesting in that respect. There's a whole palimpsest about ownership of the concept, which is interesting to explore. And, of course, it's an issue that surfaces time and time again.

Warning: I'm no art specialist. In part, I'm only posting this in order to try and entice other people, with a more informed opinion, to come and post.

"Gauche I don't think of artworks as autonomous objects any more. I think of them as networks. The art object, and the artist, can be thought of as networks, or as nodes in a network."

This sounds horribly like ANT.

you pretty much have to start seeing art as contextual and constructed

well yes, that's my point. What counts as art is basically something produced / sprung from the mind of someone who the art establishment says is an artist / displayed in ways commensurate with their expectations. I can see why people think there's a degree of emperor's new clothes going on, particularly when there are unacknowledged worker ants actually doing the graft.

Go on, guilty . Explain. The internet - Mumsnet in particular - is a great place to disseminate knowledge.

Higher education can be terribly exclusive. Theory can be exclusive. Think about it: not only is it about creating a precise, expert knowledge, that allows you to talk about complex ideas, and tradition, with precision (innocent explanation), it's also about creating a barrier between 'expert' and 'non-expert' (less innocent), and about creating a USP which will guarantee a career (very cynical view).

Mumsnet is a great place to widen the circle of those in the know. Have a go at explaining ANT.

^^ I should say I write as an unfairly unacknowledged worker ant in another branch of the creative industry BTW, which perhaps colours my opinion somewhat

Ah Mr Latour, I've been expecting you... spins round in chair, stroking a white cat

LOL @ Gauche

Seriously, there's a thread elsewhere claiming that MN-ers IQ has dropped 20 points, or something, and it's no longer a place where you can be be entertained and learn stuff.

It would be so nice if this thread was the bright side of the moon.

Hahahaha Gauche - I actually laughed out loud.

Argh, so I have 10 minutes and that's it - I have a meeting. So this is very rushed and will undoubtedly be all kinds of inadequate: but ANT is basically a social science approach that says that there are a bunch of things "out there" in the world that are networked together in material terms, and that have agency, the idea being to create a kind of "flat" ontology (ontology =way of looking at being) in which non-human actors (including objects, but also things like institutions) can be considered alongside human ones as doing things. This is also supposed to allow the deconstruction of all sorts of other binaries - knowledge and power, the material world and the social world, etc. It's all about how things in networks interrelate; there are no social "forces" outside of the web of stuff that constitute networks. The work of the observer becomes a kind of ethnography of these networks, tracing connections.

My objection to it (at least in the hands of Latour) is not against its ambition to deconstruct all those binaries - it's that it falls so short of actually doing it. It's naively realist in all the wrong places, and therefore ignores the limits of human knowledge and the way in which our perspective is always irredeemably shaped by ideology. I think his most recent book has actually recognised this as a problem, but his solution (describing modes of knowledge) is so absolutely inadequate to the problem that I think the entire 500 page thing amounts to one very long and boring suicide note.

Eep, this is a terrible description but I now have literally 4 minutes to find my stuff and leave the office!