This weeks thoughts:

So, today I felt like going into a more serious topic and am giving a BRIEF piece on separating the art from the artist I just wanted to do a little post on it before I posted anything relating to Harry Potter (but also because I think it's important to think about in general and I had a long contemplation about it when I was going for a walk).

So what does it mean?

Separating the art from the artist means to consume a piece of art purely on it's own and ignore the artist (mainly their values or actions).

Why it is relevant?

In today's society there are so many pieces of art (literature, music, movies etc.) that can effect people in a personal and emotional way that can shape their lives and world view, but sometimes the artist may have made problematic moral choices or actions that don't align with the audience's values.

For separating:

Meaning of art: The beauty of art is that it can mean so many different things to different people, so much so, that the artist could have had a completely different interpretation than everyone else. The art also isn't necessarily about the artist themselves so it should be able to be viewed as it's own.

Against separating:

Support: By continuing to love the art itself you MAY be inadvertently supporting the artist (either socially or financially), as well as potentially manipulating your own views (through the art itself).

Conversations are lost: By completely ignoring the artist it stifles the chances for conversations to be raised around whichever issue has arisen (especially because artists usually public figures) and is therefore unhelpful (and may cause greater harm).

Other factors:

Context: How ingrained the artists views/ actions are in the art and the severity of what they did can 100% impact the choices around consuming the art.

It is hard: As art can be so influential, it can weave it's way into other pieces of art and things that shape our world (intertextuality) making it fundamentally impossible to ever fully be rid of it.

Round off:

There is definitely no right or wrong answer to this topic and I just wanted to bring it up because it's a complex social question that can be helpful to think about. I do though think that whatever an artist does doesn't mean that you can't love the art they create, as long as you have educated yourself on the matter and come to your own decision about where you stand and engage in conversation around it.

I would highly recommend listening to this podcast ep (skip to around 20 minutes for the conversation) or reading this vox article for more info.

Side note of smth I want but probs will never get:

This rly retro water thing to put beside ur bed so that u remember to drink water when u wake up. It costs $44 so I'm very sad, though there might be some cheap Kmart ones.

So I wanna gather everyone's icks for an upcoming post as a bit of fun. Click the button below to fill out the quick google form (it’s all anonymous btw).

Hope you have an artsy week

C