"My life would have been different if only... I'D GONE TO ART SCHOOL".

Comment

Comment by Shellie Lewis | moved 2020! on August 30, 2014 at 7:13pm

I have an art degree. It is useless and has only gained me $30,000 of student loan debt which I have been too poor to pay back. 

The system further distinguishes if you have an MFA, often looking for nothing less (and I do not have an MFA.) It's still a closed system. I have applied to about 60+ MFA programs across the USA in four years time. I've beat my head against the brick wall of the culture industry for years and have given up. I though an art egree was ultimately necessary to be "serious" thus not a hobbyist or other derogatory term, and the degree did not help, either. Professors keep saying "your art career, your art career" over and over in school, but it is propaganda. THEY do not have an art career: they teach for a living, experts in what they cannot do themselves. (None of them ever retire, so you cannot even get a job teaching even if you have an MFA!) Art school professors teach you a fantasy version of an art career left over from the 19th Century. They teach you to be an arrogant, attitude laden narcissist drunk on self-importance, which plays to the main client of art school: kids in their early 20s who will inherit wealth, trust-fund babies. These are the white children of the rich and will never have to earn a living; they are set for life. People from poverty and blue collar backgrounds (particularly people of color) who legitimately loves art and come from poverty like me gets sucked into the black hole of art school thinking these expert professors are teaching us something real. We believe, and the ideology is reinforced, that hard work, creativity and perseverance are all we need to succeed. All nonsense. People like me blame ourselves for failing at the impossible. Oscar Wilde told us the truth, all art is perfectly useless... at least in a hyper-capitalist system where it is a commodity of exchange for money.  

Comment by Shellie Lewis | moved 2020! on August 30, 2014 at 7:12pm

William Conger and Judy Chicago have both written about how different things are today and how it is impossible for anyone new to break into the culture industry system as a career artist. We are coming up on ten years worth of an economic Depression. Art schools just perpetuate art schools. The culture industry is a cycle of: art school, galleries and museums, and they are in sync with each other to solely perpetuate themselves. The culture industry system is not looking for anything new or innovative, personal, original or even interesting as much as they want work which is consistent, predictable and marketable. The art is a product for the culture industry and it know what it wants: white, male, hetero-normative, Eurocentric, Conceptual, predictable, and clearly stated within the teleology of the Western art continuum, preference to dead, white men. Atelier artists like Jeff Koons or the mono-expressions of On Kawara fit well. Most artist that do "break in" have an expected living income of 3 - 5 years in the gallery / museum system and they hit saturation and do not make money after that time span. The system if done with the protegee in less than five years.

So I hauled most of my paintings to a charity thrift store that helps the poor so that they may sell for a few dollars and be of some use to society. I gave many others away. I told my friends I was quitting the sham of an "art career" and they protested, but no one can say they bought a painting themselves in the past year, two years, five years or even sometimes ten years. I tell my friends, you expect me to sell paintings when you like my art and yet buy nothing yourselves, from myself or any other artist, so how is that a realistic expectation of making money from paintings? Paintings are not food or clothes and of the lowest importance in an economy. It is the height of stupidity to make things and then waste your time hoping someone -magical rich people?- shall come and shower your art career in money.      

  

Comment by Valentine Mark Herman on August 30, 2014 at 5:07am

Thanks Shellie.

I have come across a sort of 'artist discrimination' in galleries around here. They only accept your work if you have been to art school, if you have already exhibited in major galleries, and if your work has been acquired by some semi-serious museums).  The problem is breaking into this closed world without the art school credentials.

So if your CV starts off '...was educated at X School of Arts and graduated with a degree in C20 Art' you stahd a good chance. But, if like me, your CV starts off with a different academic emphasis ('studied political sciencxe at the Universities of Y & Z, and is a self-taught artist') you have next to no chance -- however good or bad your art is.

Yes, you can learn from the 'net. You can also learn from doing.

Yes, art school can be a waste of money (as can any school, for that matter), but it can also be a a passpport to artistic success.

I'm reminded of Paul Simon's words:

"When I think back of all the crap I learned in High School,

It's a wonder I can think at all."

Comment by Shellie Lewis | moved 2020! on August 30, 2014 at 3:55am

No, darling, no! Art school wastes money. You can learn much more on the internet now for free! ♥

Comment by Valentine Mark Herman on August 27, 2014 at 4:46am

Incredible, Erni! Thqat is indeed the album.

One of those rare albums where the cover is better than the music.

Comment by Valentine Mark Herman on August 26, 2014 at 6:59pm

No, that's new to me, Erni: thanks.

I have an album somewhere which has on its cover a Kalashnikov, or something, and a ballet school. I forget it's title for now.

Comment by Valentine Mark Herman on August 26, 2014 at 11:22am

Thanks Erni. There is a dance one in this series...but it will come later.

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