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“Writing is nothing more than a guided dream." — Jorge Luis Borges”

June 16, 2011 indecisiveness

I’ve been having a bit of trouble deciding on the topic of my second paper, but I’ve narrowed it down to two ideas, both of which seem equally as interesting. This past semester I took an Art History class that explored the connection between Art and society and the effects they have on each other. For the paper, I thought it would be fun to write about how the role of the artist changed during the Renaissance. Before, artists were not seen as “artists,” but as craftsmen. Art was a patronage business back then. Artists were hired by clients (the rich) to paint for them whatever they outlined in a contract, which not only included subject matter, but also colors and materials used in the painting. The artist was not “allowed” to show his imagination and creativity. During the Renaissance, this all started to change; artists started painting just to paint, and people bought these paintings because they saw creativity in them. This is a pretty broad topic, especially for a 7-page paper, so in order to condense it, I would probably focus on Michelangelo, primarily on his relation with the Pope in painting the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo was commissioned to paint it even though he specifically told the Pope that he was a sculptor, not an artist. The Pope even hit Michelangelo when he refused!

My other idea also stems from a Public Art Studies class also from last semester called Art in the Public Realm. For our final paper, we had to write a 12-page curatorial proposal for an exhibition of an artist we had interviewed earlier in the semester. One topic that we had to consider was the struggle for control between the curator and artist in the creation of the exhibition. It is the curator that usually plans and proposes the exhibition, but he also has to decide how much say the artist is going to have in the matter. The curator may have one idea about which artworks to show, but the artist may disagree in that it goes against her vision or philosophy. The artist would love to have complete control over which works go into the show, but obviously that is not always an option. Both the artist and the curator have to struggle (usually) to come to a compromise over the amount of influence each will have in the matter. A subtopic for this is the idea of “artist as curator,” that the artist plans out their own exhibitions, a trend that is becoming ever more popular these days.

SC