ART VS THE ARTIST

ART VS THE ARTIST

Do you separate the art from the artist?

I’d first been challenged with this idea from a popular R&B artist (his name will not be mentioned here). Too often I’d heard “we don’t condone his behavior but we’re not giving up his music”. This was strange to me on a conceptual level. By all means if we found out one of our favorite artists was a seasoned serial killer would we keep listening to their music? I’d sat on that thought for awhile… why couldn’t people turn his music off? Why don’t we associate an artists’ art directly with them? Being that he was an artist from my hometown, a lot of his music had been ingrained in my upbringing (quite literally from cookouts to graduations). Although his music had been apart of most of my life, I had zero issue with removing or in this case muting his music. By all means - STAY MUTED.

There may be many reasons why a person may not give up an artists art:

1. Positive Association (ie: a memory made)

I know I said many but I cannot think of any other legitimate reason.

A fellow twitter user @MissElise84 posed the question/thought:

Is it separate art from the artists sometimes or always?

— 🍑 Megan Thee Stallion’s Twerk Air 🍑 (@MissElise84) January 1, 2020

After this, I began to think about my own willingness to disregard one of my favorite artists and I came up with a formula.

Art > Artist > Crime

Art = 🖼
Artist = 🧑🏽‍🎨
Crime = 🧳

If the art itself is deemed so valuable it doesnt matter if the artist isn’t liked or the weight of ANY crime they commit.

— Maester Alex 👩🏽‍🚀 (@Allexandriia) January 1, 2020

Time for introspection.

Do we do this with other things in our lives?

Are people willing to be honest about the behaviors and ideologies that they are willing to dismiss in place of consuming the persons art? Are our ties to these books/songs/movies and otherwise truly stronger than our desire for a better way or world? It seems that is the case with a large sample of people (myself included). The next time an instance of this comes up, repeat this sentence but plug in the blanks:

I value (insert art here) more than I care about (insert crime here). So what if (insert the artists name here) did (insert crime here) I enjoy their (insert art here) more.

My art, anyone’s art is an extension of them. To disregard the artist and covet the art is cognitive dissonance and we all willingly participate.