Defund The Art Police
The word ‘trophy’ can be identified with success. If one receives a trophy then they are assumed to be the winner. Once the trophy has been awarded to the winner, by a majority it is accepted that the winner is the best that the competition has to offer, otherwise why would they win? The emotions invested in the competition is the spoils and is represented by an idol which marks success. The emotions of the event are embedded in that idol, and that idol in a sense becomes a vessel for spirits; not only the winners but losers as well. Award ceremonies are similar to rituals. A Greek word, originally, the word ‘trophy’ is derived from the word ‘trepein’ which was used to describe the weapons and other spoils of a defeated army that were set up as a memorial of victory. Meaning the idea of a trophy insinuates that there are winners and there are losers.
The famous competition, the Olympics, is world renown. In fact, the entire world has adapted and accepted a Hellenic (Ancient Greece, pre-Alexander The Great) competition, amazing. But little know about the Panathenaea festival, an Athenian festival that took place every four years from ca. 500 BC- 300 AD. In this festival there were competitions that focused on poetry, music, and theater. The decision of who the finalists were, was decided by the Archon; in Greek meaning ‘ruler’. The Archon was an elected public official — elections were held every 10 years — that came from an aristocratic family. The State paid the winners of these competitions, and the Choregos funded them. ‘Choregos’ is a word used to describe a wealthy Athenian that funds the productions of plays. Though the audience were able to help decide a victor by the noise that they would make in the crowd, a louder crowd meant a more favored participant, ultimately the decision of what they were shown was decided by aristocrats.
Moving further through time, in the Renaissance era great works of art were created. Sculptures, paintings, and architecture. Aristocrats like the Medici family paid artists like Sandro Boticelli, Donatello, and Michelangelo to create artwork for them. Art is symbolic, at a time like the Renaissance to commission an artist to paint your portrait showed that you had an amount of wealth that was disposable enough to spend on a picture of yourself. The Catholic Church taxed Christians throughout Europe to fund Michelangelo’s ceiling painting of the Sistine Chapel, and even the ore statue of Martin Luther, who disagreed with the intermixing of money and religion that the Catholic Church promoted.
This leads to today, at a point in which technology has become a huge factor in our daily lives. The arise of decentralized platforms has allowed artists to sell their own work through these platforms, which the rich are still buying. The “Degenerate Ape" NFT (Non-fungible Token) sold for $1.1 million on the Solana platform last week, and prior to that art on other blockchain platforms has sold for tens of thousands of dollars, however now the difference is that artists are now able to showcase their own work in this digital age. They no longer require the acceptance of an art gallery, or the commission of a patriarchy or religious hierarchy, instead they are now able to create freely and showcase their art in the many ways that they please. Computers have now become blank walls, and art appears on them like graffiti does in our real world.
What interests me, after discussing bits of history and art, is whether we will now rid ourselves of award shows? Seeing as how it is evident that art has been controlled and commissioned by aristocrats who in return have set up and funded the award shows, that have developed manufactured artistry to define manufactured success, how can we as artists rid ourselves of manufactured artistic rituals that life begins to imitate? At the purest moments of art, whether it be dance, painting, hip-hop, theater, art imitated life, but due to the aristocratic and political influence in which artists are now commissioned to make their followers lives imitate their manufactured art; which is riddled with product advertisement, self destructive behavior, and emotional immaturity. Can decentralization fuel a change of direction in art?
Sources cited:
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/degenerate-ape-nfts-solana-blockchain-211537729.html
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-italian-renaissance-wealthy-patrons-art-power
http://www.greektheatre.gr/theatre-th/tragic/#:~:text=Tragic%20Contests%20%2D%20Ancient%20Greek%20Theatre&text=Tragedies%20were%20being%20presented%20to,Dionyssia)%20and%20the%20Great%20Dionyssia.