The Artist's Role in Society

Asking an artist to define their purpose is like asking a person why they exist. It is a question that is almost impossible to answer. For me, creating art is a process of faith. I paint for some unknown reason that is sometimes revealed at a later date, and sometimes is never revealed at all. Just as I can continue to live without knowing the answers to the meaning of life, I can still paint without needing to justify why I am doing it.

Unfortunately, the public servants that fund artists need some kind of purpose to justify allocating money to artists over alternative causes. Publicly funded galleries that fail to justify the value of art find that their source of government funds is quite limited. Likewise, those artist that fail to provide a worthy justification simply don't get the money. I think the unfortunate consequence of the justification process is that it creates an arts culture that is not conducive to good art.

For galleries, the easiest way is to justify a funding application is to use the money on art that nobody likes, or installation art that can't be sold. Consequently, public funds get directed towards artwork that are sometimes as trivial as a room with the lights switched off, and an artist's name in Italic letters. Ironically, by purchasing and promoting unpopular art, the galleries can in some ways do away with the justification process. Criticism of their actions can be dismissed as ignorance by less intelligent members of the general public.

For artists, the easiest way to justify their funding application is to use some kind of moralistic angle that will appeal to public servants. Inevitably, this makes artists pawns in the political campaigns of others. Even politicians admit this. Recently, Australia's federal Minister for the Arts argued that his opposition parties use the arts as a propaganda tool:

"The problem about parties of the ... is that their attitude to the arts is defined by instrumentalism. What artists do is not valued for its own sake. Rather the arts are seen as a means to some other end: an appendix to social policy, a vehicle for social change, an instrument for political causes, a propaganda tool."

Although political parties and public servants value art as a propaganda tool, for me, propaganda and art are contradictions in terms. I use art to ask a question, not deliver the answer. When I write, I am telling people what to think. When I paint, I am discovering what I am confused about. When I show my art to others, I want to learn more about what they think or feel.

My painting "Australian Story" is a good example of my approach to art. The painting explores the diversity of modern Australian life by considering the historical foundations Australia's urban society is built on. The painting depicts a true story of an orgy that followed the unloading of female convicts in Botany Bay. When I read the account of the orgy, I wondered what Aborigines watching the scene would have thought, what the convicts would have thought, and what Arthur Phillip, Australia's first governor, would have thought. Then I wondered what I thought about it, and what my fellow Australians would have thought about it. In each case, I expected that the thoughts would have been quite different, and it is those diversity of thoughts that help explain the diverse nature of Australian society today. I expect diverse thoughts will also define Australians in the future, and will also explain why Australia will be diverse 100 years from now. Australia's convict foundations were a turning point in the history of the continent, and in the future, the memory of that turning point will always turn people in different directions. My rational mind thinks the lack of homogeneity is bad for Australian society. My artistic mind; however, finds the diversity very intriguing.

In a case of life imitating art, the painting has had an interesting story of its own. I conceived it when I was concussed and hungover after being set upon by a gang in a nightclub. I first showed it to other artists in an art class. I rolled up to the class with a wheelbarrow full of paintings to show, and began unveiling them. My initial paintings were greeted with positive and inquisitive reactions. Australian Story; however, was greeted with silence and uneasyness. It felt like the temperature of the room had dropped 5 degrees. The class just didn't know what to say, or didn't want to say it. I found it ironic that a group of people that generally define themselves on individuality would be so uncomfortable about expressing an opinion in a time of uncertainty.

Later I sold the painting to a couple involved in a number of diverse charitable causes, but they seemed to go cold on it and I got it back. Then I donated it to the Museum of Sydney. They then loaned it to the Hyde Park Barracks. From what I could gather, the Hyde Park Barracks were having an exhibition on what Aborigines would have thought about the colonisation of Australia and they wanted to show my painting. The exhibition sounded good in theory; however, when I spoke to the curator he seemed to misunderstand the painting. He was under the impression that the Aborigines would have been horrified and disgusted by the orgy. I took this as a sign that he wanted to use the painting as a form of political activism. Personally though, I think the Aborigines would have interpreted the orgy as some kind of initiation ritual. Orgies were part of Aboriginal cultures, and especially important when new women were brought into the tribe. From their own experience with orgies, I would expect the Aborigines would have interpreted the convict orgy as something similar to their own.

I am not sure whether the exhibition ever went ahead. A few years later, the Barracks contacted me and asked me to collect my painting. Perhaps they worked out what it was about an didn't like it. Perhaps they couldn't see a purpose for it if it couldn’t be used to achieve a political objective or if that political objective changed. I don't know.

Australian Story is a painting that has never really found a home, and I quite like that about it. As it goes from one place to another, it creates stories of its own and it is the unpredictability of these stories where I think its value resides. That is not something that you can ever justify, especially in a funding application. It is a mystery that reveals itself with time, and I like letting that mystery have a life of its own.

I think another problem with trying to justify art is that the justification can institutionalise it, and take it out of the arena where it is meant to reside. For example, sitting around a campfire, drinking a few beers, and listening to someone play a guitar has a certain kind of magic that makes the world's problems seem unimportant. Likewise, a great painting of beauty can take the audience into a special place where nothing matters except for a feeling appreciation. However, if the painting is put in a gallery of public servants, then the art dies and the beauty is lost.

I think this institutionalisation has been felt worst with Aboriginal art. Bringing the art into a gallery shows the emotion of the work, but it shows it dead; like stuffed animals in a museum. Aboriginal art was traditionally transient, and often painted on the body. The audience was part of the work, not disconnected from it. Now that it has been institutionalised, the art is being gazed upon by people who can't, or will not, engage with it. There is an opportunity cost as a consequence. Aboriginal artists that could have been painting bodies for tribal consumption are instead painting canvases for the consumption of a disconnected urban audience. It wouldn't be so bad if there was a connection between the two; however, the life of the urban art viewer is so far removed from that of the rural Aboriginal artist that there really isn't much chance for the two to ever meet in the art.

The unsavoury situation has come about because public servants have defined art on moral grounds, and they have defined art on monetary grounds, but they have not really thought about the value of art on community grounds. It is nice that public servants want to help artists attain monetary empowerment, and there are plenty of artists that want to attain monetary empowerment (myself included), but with that empowerment also comes a loss of art itself.

Judging Art

The Role of the Critic

The Role of the Artist

Skills versus Originality

Unappreciated genius

Government Funding for Art

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