In a way this does reveal a basic paradox of the art world. The historic tradition and history of art is one of privileged patronage: Art for the very few at the top of the scale of wealth and power. But one of the features of modernism was to make art for a new public, the new middle class created by spreading democracy and mass markets. Patronage was extended. The Impressionists as a group had to create a new audience and patronage for their work and they did it by offering artworks that mirrored the social conditions of those new patrons as well as by utilizing accessible techniques (showing how the work was made). So now we have the situation where that "new" modernist audience has spread more and more, extending to limits of mass culture, while the mechanisms by which art is "delivered" remains affected by the structures of a privileged patronage class. Prince Albert represented the taste of the privileges aristocratic art patrons which also defined the "unchanging" laws of art quality as if to symbolize the inherent divisions between classes. Artists are still trying to figure out how to continue the democratic essence of modernism while eschewing the democratic methods of making art. It's like trying to build a one of a kind automobiles by hand and yet make them available to the broad public at the same price as the average manufactured auto. It can't be done without losing the Aura (see Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction). How can art be available to all and still be art (in the old-fashioned Prince Albert sense)? As we know, art does survive, but its definitions change. wc
----- Original Message ---- From: joseph berg <[email protected]> To: aesthetics-l <[email protected]> Sent: Thu, October 21, 2010 1:25:23 AM Subject: "The works of art, by being publicly exhibited and offered for sale, are becoming articles of trade, following as such the unreasoning laws of markets and fashion; and public and even private patronage is swayed by their tyrannical influence." - The works of art, by being publicly exhibited and offered for sale, are becoming articles of trade, following as such the unreasoning laws of markets and fashion; and public and even private patronage is swayed by their tyrannical influence. Prince Albert (1851)
