Selling The Product

Artists present their art through the marketplace. For some it is a question of survival, for others merely a question of inflicting themselves on an audience. For all it is the political economy of the culture industry that determins if their works are to see the light of day. Art is bought and sold as a commodity. It is equated to a sum of money for this purpose. Art equated in terms of money can be and is used for speculation. Middle men make their livings from the sale and resale of art. It is a buyers market too. There are always more artists selling their wares than buyers. In that case we should remember that the buyers are your monopolists like Kerridge whose 'artistic' tastes we have already described. A poignant example is the story of Mexican muralist Rivera. He was commissioned to do a very large mural for one of the Rockefellers. The mural happened to include a picture of the great Russian revolutionary Lenin. The Rockefellers had the whole mural painted over — destroying many months of painstaking work. It is important to remember the artist loses control of his art once he sells it.

I mention these questions of 'whom is art for' and 'who controls the presentation of art to the public' because they are aspects of our art that our art critics and artists would prefer us to ignore. They consider it 'unfortunate' that art is not available to most New Zealanders and that the art we do see dwells on the concerns of the ruling class and the intellectuals it has bought and propagates the politics of these people.

Alistair MacFarlane showed the lunacy of artists and critics in this respect. He said that because theatre audiences are predominantly bourgeois intellectual we should, therefore, ensure our drama caters to the taste of the audience. (Letter on Marat/Sade — 'meeting them on their own ground'). This sort of argument fails to question 'for whom' with relation to art. It accepts the status quo of art by a minority for a minority. The next defence against considering political and economic factors is the concept of the 'artists integrity'. This demands that the pure artist be removed from his commercial clothing and considered alone. But the public only knows an artist by how he is presented to them. It flatters the artist to measure his achievement by intentions and not the end result. It is precisely the creation of a work of art that is artistic. Anyone can have visions of a Mona Lisa — only one person could paint it. And I'm sure that Alice Cooper would have us believe that he is an artist beneath all the shitty rock music that fills his bank account.