Thursday, April 8, 2010

Tadanori Yokoo on Twitter (part two)

Tadanori Yokoo on Twitter says, if you are doing what you truly believe in, what other people say ("hyoka" or social evaluation/assessment) doesn't matter.
No one really does art to get something back in return.
No one really knows if art is valid or not.
Evaluation/assessment is something that is determined by a commercial market, job contract or social hierarchy.
That's when evaluation/assessment becomes relevant _ and it must be fair and accurate or else someone is getting exploited, which goes contrary to what art is about from the get-go.
But it is important to remember that something monetary, contractual and social is involved in those endeavors in which evaluation/assessment takes meaning.
But art is not a job and has nothing to do with all that.
That is the privilege of art and also the painful difficulties of art.
Art by definition means you will never be properly evaluated.
No one will come pat you on the back and say: hey, your art is great.
Unless it is an evaluation/assessment that makes art commercial, a job or a reflection of social ranking, which isn't really about art at all but something just maybe related to art only in the sense that artists are human and need to eat and pay rent.
That is why doing any commercial marketing activity for your art is a big pain because you have to do it even though it isn't relevant or really meaningful.
At least, even if everyone ignores you and your art, you know you don't care.

2 comments:

  1. I agree, many artists here in Tijuana wish to make a profit from their art and frankly its not that good, at least to me, whenever I've seen art it doesn't tell me anything, not even a perspective of their view of life.
    The part of evaluation assessment I think is just what I mentioned before, actually we as observers or potential consumers of art become evaluators and assessors to those who make art.

    But there's this part when you say that no one really knows if art is valid or not, this is also true, because art is subjective, it depends on what each person believes is beauty. I may not appreciate sketch artists but I might appreciate muralists, its all depending on who's watching.

    When people do what they truly believe their work becomes attractive, beautiful and everyone likes it, and its because of that, because you are reflecting and giving what you have in your heart, that thing that you love doing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Art is about selfless giving. I agree with you totally. I don't want to contradict myself but I also think artists believe they should be paid for their work because they believe it. Art is priceless but that means it is worth all the money in the world. It is about value that goes beyond the market economy.

    ReplyDelete