It's interesting, it's almost assumed these days that we have this ownership of public figures' existence. It makes someone like Maison or Banksy an outlier for opting out. Like we should be seeing what they're up to, we expect them to perform for us online, when what is that but pushing your creative energy into a medium you may not choose for your art and that you aren't compensated for?
Today, we expect artists to perform a public role, to assent to interviews and magazine profiles in which they explain and justify their work, to attend openings in enviable clothes, to hold forth on feminism and racism and social injustice and the latest catastrophes, political and environmental.
Artists have always been iconoclasts, and it's funny how startling it is that they may choose to retreat from the shiny, glossed up fake world in the spotlight of public scrutiny. When some folks are claiming their digital presence is art, it's compelling to see talented folks continue to unplug.
It's interesting, it's almost assumed these days that we have this ownership of public figures' existence. It makes someone like Maison or Banksy an outlier for opting out. Like we should be seeing what they're up to, we expect them to perform for us online, when what is that but pushing your creative energy into a medium you may not choose for your art and that you aren't compensated for?
Artists have always been iconoclasts, and it's funny how startling it is that they may choose to retreat from the shiny, glossed up fake world in the spotlight of public scrutiny. When some folks are claiming their digital presence is art, it's compelling to see talented folks continue to unplug.