Success for an artist can mean a great many things, from financial freedom provided by great demand for their work, to the critical acclaim that laudatory efforts like awards might provide. Whatever the case may be for the individual artist, when success hinges on reception, as it does for the stated examples, the individual suffers regardless of whether or not they come to be successful by any such definition, because of notable biases maintained by the public. An artist’s capacity to succeed is heavily and wrongly dependant on two particular factors. The first of those factors being the artists ‘ability’, and the second being whether or not they happen to be deceased.
Ability may at first seem to be an immutable factor; does the artist have skill or not? But in truth the idea of skill is no more than a convenient lie, behind the cover of which we can deny any such claim that we evaluate art on little more than whether or not it appeals to our personal ideals. To break things down to a more basal level, ability is an artists capacity to work within the rules set forward by whatever particular artistic tradition they are choosing to work within. Phillip A. Ewell in his paper, “Music Theory and the White Racial Frame,” discusses the ways in which the term music theory does not in fact describe the whole of music as it seems to imply, but instead explains the framework of european musicians from throughout the 18th century. It is is by this definitive label that we cast aside alternative frames, and leave ourselves out to dry with only one possible perspective through which to view new music. This is not to say that the world is devoid of talented and recognized musicians who do not abide by these rules, but within the popular culture of the western world, they are few and far between. Ewell uses staggering statistics about the prevalence of white people within the field of music theory to parallel the influence of europeans on the tradition of ‘music theory’. 90.4% of people employed full-time in the field are caucasian, and the field of music theory has long been almost singularly devoted to the carrying forward of those european musical styles on which the field of study was built. Ewell further explains the degree to which he himself as a black man is entrenched in the traditions of “white music theory” as a result of being a professor of music theory at Hunter College. The forwardness of his admission creates opportunity for his audience to be met on equal terms, they themselves likely to be just as set into the european tradition of music theory as the author. The recognition of this framework recategorizes ability within music to be the capacity for a musician to operate well within the guidelines set down by those european musicians credited with establishing the harmonic stylings now known as ‘music theory’.
It is Adam Kirsch’s claim that literature is truly little more than a power struggle. This medium is not music, but an artistic pursuit none the less, the perspective that the arena as a whole is not an expressive and free art form, but instead a power struggle between authors and audiences is a perfect encapsulation of what recognition and fame has done to those pursuits which lead to its acquisition. Kirsch opens his paper with the description of what was a newly published debut novel at the time, All the Sad Young Literary Men by Keith Gessen. The novel, Kirsch explains, was received simply as an “assertion of self”. It was not in fact a raw work of art, but instead a proclamation by Gessen that he was in fact deserving of fame. In the reception of this novel, many were quick to tear apart not the literary stylings of the text, but instead the validity of Gessen’s claim on recognition. Kirsch goes on to say that writing is not built on technical skill, whatever that may mean, but instead upon the capacity to communicate one’s self to audiences aiming to “have one’s very being confirmed by having it acknowledged by others”. When this idea is taken in conjunction with the framework presented by Ewell, the innate constraints put on art by its influences and the rules of the medium, the capacity for one to put themselves on full display in any artform is deeply eroded.
Understanding mortality within art, particularly demand for that art, reveals a quite morbid trend. In The “Death-Effect” in art prices: A Demand-Side Exploration, there is verification of increase in both price and demand for works following an artists death. The study presented uses rigorous mathematical analysis of the time passed since the artist’s death in combination with the number of works up for auction on a given day, and finds that after an artist has passed, not only does the price for their works go up, but the demand for them does as well. The economic perspective here characterizes living artists as “durable goods monopolists” meaning they largely cant earn above competitive wages for their work, until it is no longer in production. The deeply exacting nature of this study lends great credibility to its findings, going as far as to recognize inconclusive findings in the early stages of the study before controlling for an additional unknown variable.
When the death effect is understood in conjunction with Kirsch’s view on the purpose of artistic endeavors, tragedy is made clear. An artist seeks recognition to have their very being confirmed and acknowledged, but it is after death that the greatest confirmation and acknowledgement takes place. An artists desire to be validated largely a feeble one, those looking to consume the art that may be made, have already decided that the value of such art is eroded by its progenitor’s maintained health. When further taken into the perspective of a limiting artistic framework, not only might an artist fail to be recognized within their own lifetime, but they may also be asked to filter their own being through the lens of what medium is most praised in their time. The art created sadly may come to reflect what art is demanded, and not what art is truly inspired. This assessment is in no way meant to diminish the works of the classically and much admired among painters singers and authors, but instead to bring to light the greater failure to recognize that art made outside of the bounds of any known frame, such that it may never be recognized as anything of great substance. The absolute stance on what makes art substantive has eroded our ability to see and enjoy what simply is.
Works Cited
Ewell, Philip A. “Music Theory and the White Racial Frame.” Music Theory Online, 1 Sept. 2020, https://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.20.26.2/mto.20.26.2.ewell.html.
Ekelund, R. B., et al. “The ‘Death-Effect’ in Art Prices: A Demand-Side Exploration.” Journal of Cultural Economics, vol. 24, no. 4, 2000, pp. 283-300. JSTOR, www.jstor.org.remote.baruch.cuny.edu/stable/41810735. Accessed 23 Apr. 2023.
Kirsch, Adam. “The Fight for Recognition.” Poetry, vol. 193, no. 2, 2008, pp. 143–48. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20608359. Accessed 23 Apr. 2023.