On Art and Humanity

I came across this thought provoking post by Keith Russell on the Art Scuttlebutt Forum:

I have never believed that art is any kind of ‘universal’ language. I also do not believe that art is ‘for everyone’, or that every human being can enjoy, does enjoy, or even needs, art.

That being said, it has no bearing whatsoever on those of us who do need art, enjoy art, and can appreciate a wide variety of it.

I think humanity ‘progresses’–and has always ‘progressed’ (to whatever extent it actually has)–because of a very few, who (essentially) drag the rest of humanity along, and almost always the rest of humanity is totally unaware that it is being dragged.

How many people know where the power for their homes is generated, or how? How many people understand even the basics of the circulation of the blood in their own bodies, or how the Internet works, or how a DVD player reads a DVD disc, or could name more than five or six artists, or more than three periods in art history?

And, of course, they don’t need to.

I suppose there will always be those who wish to ‘educate’ the ‘masses’ to appreciate ‘the finer things’ in life–bless them, and they’re welcome!

But, ‘the masses’ don’t buy (if you’ll allow me the conceit of calling it this) ‘fine art’. Rather than trying to find a way to get ‘the masses’ to buy what you make, or (IMO, far worse) trying to tailor what you make to appeal to the broadest range of folks, why not work instead to find those (admittedly) few people who can and will enjoy what you already make, eagerly await what you’re going to make next, and who desire (and can afford) to own it, whe it becomes available?

I’ve always believed that we should find the “starfish” who really appreciate our work, so I thought Keith’s post was on the money. What do you think?

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