Guelph is about to launch "Guelph Recognition of Excellence in the Arts"
This got me thinking...
Want to come along for the ride? Read on...
What Makes Art Valuable — and Who Gets to Decide?
A deceptively simple question sits behind much of what arts organizations do:
If we talk about artistic excellence, what is the yardstick we are measuring with?
Artists, audiences, critics, curators, presenters, granting bodies, juries and arts organizations make judgements about artistic value all the time. Yet we seldom stop to ask what criteria we are actually using.
Is artistic excellence about technical skill or craftsmanship? Originality? Beauty? Innovation? Emotional impact? Intellectual depth? Cultural significance? Popularity? Social impact? Contribution to a community?
And who gets to decide?
Artistic excellence and artistic value
There may be an important distinction between the excellence of the art itself and the value an artist or their work contributes to a community.
An artist might be an extraordinary mentor, advocate and community builder without necessarily producing extraordinary art. Conversely, an artist might create exceptional work while contributing very little to the wider arts community.
Both may be valuable, but are they the same kind of value?
This becomes particularly interesting when we create awards and recognition programs. Are we recognizing excellence in the work, contribution to the arts, social impact, or some combination of these? If it is a combination, how are those different qualities weighed?
Does art have to do something?
We increasingly describe the value of art in terms of what it accomplishes. Art can build community, advance social justice, increase understanding, promote inclusion, preserve cultural identity, contribute to economic activity, improve well-being and give voice to people and experiences that might otherwise go unheard.
These are important possibilities.
But should art have to accomplish any of them in order to be considered valuable?
Can a painting simply be beautiful? Can music exist simply because it gives pleasure? Can a comedy simply make people laugh? Can theatre simply offer an audience an absorbing hour in the company of other human beings?
A work of art can have a social purpose and be extraordinary art. But does the importance of its purpose make the art itself better?
There is another complication. The tools of art — story, image, music, language, performance, symbolism and emotion — can be used to inspire and illuminate, but they can also be used to persuade, manipulate and propagandize. Art does not necessarily serve only causes we consider good. This raises another question: can something be artistically excellent while serving a purpose we find objectionable? And conversely, can work serving an admirable purpose still be poor art?
Art, advocacy and public support
This question becomes more complicated when arts organizations advocate for public and private support.
To make a case for funding, we understandably demonstrate the benefits the arts provide: economic activity, tourism, community identity, education, inclusion, well-being, downtown vitality and other measurable outcomes.
But this raises an uncomfortable question:
Do the arts deserve support because of what they do for society, or does a healthy society support the arts because art itself has value?
Perhaps both are true. But they are different arguments.
And if artists and arts organizations must continually demonstrate social usefulness in order to attract funding, does that eventually influence which art gets supported — or even how artists describe the purpose of their work?
Who are the gatekeepers?
Technology has dramatically reduced the barriers to creating and distributing art. Musicians can record and distribute their own music. Writers can publish their own books. Filmmakers can make and distribute films without traditional studios. Artists can reach audiences directly.
This has created enormous opportunities and allowed voices previously excluded by traditional institutions to be heard.
But traditional gatekeepers — editors, publishers, critics, curators, producers and artistic directors — also played a role in establishing, challenging and communicating standards.
If their influence diminishes, have we liberated artistic expression, weakened our mechanisms for assessing excellence, or both?
Who decides what is good now?
What about taste?
Perhaps the most personal question is also one of the most difficult:
Why do I think something is good?
Is liking something the same as believing it is good?
Our tastes are shaped by education, family, culture, age, experience, class, geography, artistic traditions, fashion, exposure and countless other influences.
Can I recognize excellence in something I dislike?
Can something I love nevertheless be mediocre art?
Can a work be personally meaningful and still be bad art?
Even asking these questions forces us to examine the yardsticks we carry around without realizing it.
Why have this conversation?
The purpose would not be to develop an official definition of artistic excellence or to have everyone agree about what constitutes good art. That would probably be impossible — and perhaps undesirable.
The value would be in examining the assumptions behind the judgements we already make.
This seems particularly timely when arts organizations are simultaneously recognizing artistic achievement and advocating for greater public and private support of the arts.
Those activities raise two related but fundamentally different questions:
What makes art worthy of recognition?
What makes the arts worthy of support?
Perhaps a worthwhile arts conversation begins by recognizing that the answers may not be the same.
And for those of you who want to go further, I talked about this during Covid-19. My conclusion: arts' value is immeasurable.
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