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.

anyone can have an opinion true.

But surely to be valid, an opinion should be an informed one?

If your preference is for art that displays the hand of the artist

All art displays the hand of the artist, the issue is that the artist isn't always credited.

I agree it's shocking OP. I was speechless when I found out a 'sculptor' whose work was put on display and in Trafalgar Square just came up with the general concept but didn't actually sculpt or make any of it!

You can have an opinion without having a certain level of education in a subject. I find your superior views unpalatable.

I think hoochycoo is enunciating from within the 'restricted field of cultural production'. In this area 'Art' is different from 'art'. The differences are discursive - discourses that are enunciated both verbally (what people say/write) and in practices (what people do and where they do it: eg. prices of art works, how they are treated, where they are displayed, etc.).

The discursive differences that govern the difference between 'Art' and 'art' are quite subtle, and can be considered rules that people learn, wither osmotically, as they grow up in certain social groups, or intentionally, usually through attending tertiary education courses.

The rules have a certain class dimension, they can be mapped onto social class but not in an identical way - they diverge at significant juncture.

A lot of Art plays with these rules.

The idea that 'Art' has a semi-opaque language governing its status as Art tends to provoke a degree of hostility. I suspect that is because people, quite rightly, pick up on the exclusionary aspect of those rules.

However, it really is not hard to learn those rules, or to read about it.

That is a really, really simplified, unnuanced version of Bourdieu. And I hugely apologise for the lack of nuance.

All well and good, but how does that relate to not crediting the artists/Artists(?) who have contributed?

Backie,

I was using ' hand of the artist' as a way to say that it is important to the concept of the artwork that it is

-handcrafted solely by the artist
-has marks of making particular to one artist
-is an solo act of self expression.

I didn't mean it simply as a way to say that a work of art was made by any artist by hand.

Through my work I regularly come into contact with a famous artist. He sells huge sculptures made out of some sort of fibreglass type material for hundreds of thousands, jets around the world and is generally fawned over. He's a dick. His assistant once called me and demanded that I act immediately as he was stuck in traffic in Cannes and was having a tantrum. Not sure what she wanted me to do but she called me about 10 times over the whole 12 minutes he was stuck at an intersection on his way to a party. She was practically in tears. I was about 200 miles away from the traffic jam and it was nothing to do with my line of work. He send a horrible email to my boss a few days later telling him I was incompetent and should be fired.

I also happen to know a woman who works in the place that actually produces his work. She's a single mum on minimum wage bringing up 3 kids on her own. She spends weeks, sometimes months making his sculptures.

There's something very wrong there IMO. I used to think his work was overpriced style over substance but now I know how it is actually produced I really really dislike it. He's making loddsa money but he isn't actually doing the hard work and doesn't have the skills to do so. This is what I call "capitalist art" AKA not art but exploitation.

thanks the CatfromJapan, your explanation is far better than mine!

definitely the difference between art with a small a and a big A.

I'm not rising to all these insults by the way, but I'd prefer it if they didn't continue. :-)

Really hoochy you're talking a load of shite and changing the "meaning" of what you have said depending on the response you've had to the comment.

Hand of the artist means the person (or people) who did the art. They're the artists. They did it. The person who designed it, is the art designer, or imaginer but if they outsourced the actual doing of the art then they aren't the artist of that particular work. Other people's hands did it.

@ wow

One of the chief characteristics that separates those who understand 'Art' and those who like 'art' is the understanding of the rules.

One of the big, modern rules is that 'Art' is something you know about rather than like (there's a Kantian thing going on there, as well as an age-old disgust about the body).

Those outside the restricted field have a 'romantic ('Romantic' - C19 ideology, as well as connotations of mass-produced sentimentalism) notion of art as individual production'. They are also over-attached to the idea of decoration (apparently!) Those inside the field are aware of, recognise, and produce rules that differentiate Art from this unrestricted notion of art.

So you get modern street Art that is all about playing with reproducibility, from templates, in unregulated public places, and so on. Or printing an artist's name over and over again. It's all baffling if you don't realise it's playing with a set of rules and a 'tradition' of cultural production. 'Tradition' being another set of rules that you have to learn.

Personally, I reckon 'sentimentality' is long overdue a reassessment.

I love Chris Offilli for this.

thecatfromjapan's post has made me want to throw my hands in the air and say "ffs, what a load of pretentious bollocks" grin

Yep!! Glad I wasn't the only one! its waffle. It probably means something to a select few "professionals" who get to have valid opinions but really it's just a load of fluff used to justify why someone who never picked up the paintbrush gets paid a fortune for their masterpiece.

Insults? It's okay for you to tell the non artists amongst us we don't have valid opinions and are uneducated but you feel insulted when you are called to account for this. Please re-read the thread: no one has insulted you.

In the context catfromjapan's analogy Backie, we're obviously arguing from different perspectives. You are arguing from a small a and me from a big A. "Hand of the artist " is a fairly standard art terminology that means what I have said. You have your own definition obviously, but it is just your definition.

I'd appreciate it if you'd stop insulting me.

I'm really hoping that someone will come onto this thread who can give a really simple explanation. I realise that I'm still using too much jargon and I'm losing nuance.

Bourdieu is great, really.

The internet should be a great place for learning about stuff. I don't want to put people off by making it too complicated BUT it's not my area and my explanations are clunky and off-putting.

I don't despise any of you.

I just find it depressingly that you feel able to say what is and isn't art and who is or isn't an artist without demonstrating an understanding of art theory and history.

i've never said you can't have an opinion, or like or dislike what you want. You totally can, you can like, make , buy, look at whatever you like!

What you're failing to understand hoochy is that your big A was created by people, people just like me- I am a valid people, (I at least qualify as that!), who needed/need it to serve their agenda. Your capital letter does not give anymore weight to your opinion of art than mine. It is all opinion. You may think that because you understand these "rules" that your opinion is more correct than that of those who didn't learn your chosen rules. You would be wrong. Art or art, it makes no difference. If you didn't do it, you aren't the artist.

The agenda, BTW, being fame and ultimately £££.

fair enough jackie, you are right, I'm a "prick" who is "talking shite".

The difference of that capital letter is, ultimately, the difference between making and losing money, though Backie. And, cards on table, you're going to make more money if you know the rules governing the bestowal of that capital 'A'.

It's not entirely down to rich people 'liking' a type of art more than another. Sure, there is always going to be a lucrative market for beautifully, hand-drawn pictures of dogs. However, lots of rich people want to buy the imprimatur of having had the cultural education to buy Art as opposed to art, so a lot of rich people buy stuff that enunciates the rules.

And, yes, one of the purposes of those rules is to clearly signal the difference between Art and art - and between those who 'recognise' Art and those who don't.