I believe art is impossible in mass consumer culture. The goals of
consumer culture and art are incompatible. Art seeks to communicate
the unique and idiosyncratic, and consumer culture seeks to standardize
and enforce the status quo.
that's a tidy oversimplification. art, in an idealized sense, is difficult
to combine with consumer/pop culture but certainly not impossible. in fact i
find this a rather conservative, elitist argument of what "art" is..
reminiscent of adorno and horkheimer "high culture" blah blah. Art is in the
eye of the beholder and i think that is about all that can be definitively
said about it. in my book, the new pepsi can is art. maybe not particularly
inspired or unique but these are subjective judgements.
What bothers me is the feeling that they're appropriating something for
commercial reasons, with no concern for the cultural context and artistic
history involved. I feel the same way about acts like
this is a valid concern, but i think there is some attention paid due to the
fact that the slogan "detroit techno" is used. since they actually use no
ufo's this is more than just commercial appropriation;the slogan is a double
entendre that acknowledges the music. i think there is cultural respect here
in that they purposefully chose no ufo's, all detroit, to accompany a
recognizable detroit icon, ford. that's some history recognition right
there. instead of paying phatdawg mcfly they're paying juan, and that is
some very tangible respect in my book. if this was a revlon ad with some
models showing off lipstick as they jam to no ufo's, i'd be more concerned.
but i don't see any damage done..
Deep Forest, who have
made huge bank by exploiting the music of Pygmies.
im no deep forest fan but i think this is a harsh assessment, to label as
"exploitation", especially since there is some level of "art" involved. is
it unfair to pygmies? and if so, because they use pygmy music period, or
because they've made money? it gets complicated and very subjective -- how
much of deep forest's sound is truly "pygmy music", are the pygmy artists
paid fairly and proportionately, etc? i think only pygmies can really
answer. it's certainly not cut & dry..commerce art and culture are in a
constant tug of war that can be interpreted in infinite ways...only the
"victims" can determine whether they are truly victims or not.
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