The Pitters' Place

A friend of mine recently posted on Facebook about Kanye West getting an honorary doctorate from Chicago's Art Institute. He captioned it with "*huge eye roll* Is the Art Institute desperate for PR? What a joke."

My response was "The guy is an unmitigated douche and huge ego, yes, but he's talented and pushes the envelope. Pollock was a drunk who threatened his wife and pissed on his own art, but no one questions his status in the lexicon of artists of various stripes."

There ensued this whole exchange which boiled down to:

Him: I can't look past personal flaws that easily, they comment on the art

Me: The art exists in a vacuum.

He then asked if I wanted my daughter patterning herself after the way he acts (good point, role models and all) and my counterpoint was that I would be raising my daughter to not confuse the artist with the art and, by way of example, I pointed out that she loved Dr. Suess and I wouldn't fault her for it, though the man was racist as hell and supported the dehumanization and internment of Japanese Americans during WW2.

I further pointed out that I enjoy John Lennon but I don't beat or cheat on my wife, I like Connery as 007 but I don't slap women about, I like Dali but I don't host weekly orgies.

What say ye? Is the art lesser for the artist's flaws?

The art is lessened slightly, in my opinion, by the artist's unpleasantries. I find it difficult to enjoy the Lethal Weapon films, for example, because Gibson is a colossal arsehole. Still, ignorance is bliss.

I have a real difficulty in separating the art from the artist because I don't believe that the art does exist in a vacuum - anything that comes from your mind is coming from, to some extent, your values, your processes, your social biases and you can't, IMO, criticise the end product without criticising the artist.

Buuuuut, despite all that, I agree with you and not your friend, in that you cannot excoriate Kanye for being a douche without taking huge swathes of the artistic world to task as well because artists are generally shitbags #notallartists

People just don't like him because he's black and successful although, actually, that may have a hint of truth to it. Crackers be bitter, yo.

Like, we can all agree that Chris Brown is a garbage person for beating up Rihanna but there are a shit ton of white artists who've been given a pass for violence. Roman Polanksi raped a child and a they let him win an Oscar. Crackers *are* bitter.

I'm an equal opportunities hater. People, what a bunch of bastards...insert gif of Roy from IT Crowd that I can't find cos I'm on my phone.

I got your back m8:

3good 5me, broseph

Chris Brown won a grammy.

I'm in agreement with your side, mostly. We'd all be hard-pressed to locate racist undertones in Suess books. Most great artists and writers (especially pre-20th century) have been racists, sexists, whatever the norm was for the day. I mean, Shakespeare was pretty anti-Semite, but so was everyone. Doesn't make it OK, but no one in their right mind is going to invalidate Shakespeare. Ya know. Dickens, Poe, Dostoyevsky, Dumas, Coleridge...all typically considered among the best writers ever, were all historically quite racist. Kanye's a massive douchenozzle, but that should not take away from his musical ability. (Personally, I think he's a terrible rapper so far as rappers go, but he is a top-notch producer, so if his douchebaggery comes through in his lyrics [and it does], I still respect him as an artist in the production department.)

I struggle to separate the art from the person. I mean, I don't think I'll ever listen to a Lost Prophets song again(I listened when I was a teenager, not so much in recent years, but every now and then a song would come on and I'd like it) since finding out about Ian Watkins.

I had to look up who that was and WHOA PAEDOPHILE.

Ian Watkins totally fucked over the rest of the Lost Prophets. I occasionally listen to their songs, but it isn't the same anymore.

I can't separate them either, however, if a "ahole" artist receives something that has to do with art, then that's ok by me. If he was being given a doctorate in something that had nothing to do with his art that would be something else.

Cinemachinery wrote:I had to look up who that was and WHOA PAEDOPHILE.

If you look up the court documents I think that are floating around the internet, it's very hard reading.

As the father of a two year old, I think I have enough rage and worry in my life, so no, I won't do that.

Yeah, in that case I would definitely leave it.

I can separate the art from the artist. I'm not giving up my Jim'll Fix It box-sets for anybody.

Cinemachinery wrote:What say ye? Is the art lesser for the artist's flaws?

I separate the art and the artist. Gesualdo was a murderer, but he wrote interesting music. And it wasn't the music that committed the murders.

But anyway: Taylor Swift > Kanye West.

I generally don't give a shit what artists/celebrities do in their personal lives. I haven't heard a Kanye West song I like, but I've heard a couple that are laughably bad, and that has nothing to do with his personality.