A good case could be made that the respect which you speak of needs to be encouraged more from the viewer to the artist. Artists need more respect.; read about what you are looking at, learn more about the artist and what they do, realize the difference between personal taste and knowledge about a subject. Learn about the history of art, when and why things happened. Knowledge of process and history make experience richer and more alive. Art isn’t just entertainment.

Most great art has been initially rejected by the public. Where’s the respect?

FYI, Picasso said this about his masterpiece Guernica “…this bull is a bull and this horse is a horse… If you give a meaning to certain things in my paintings it may be very true, but it is not my idea to give this meaning. What ideas and conclusions you have got I obtained too, but instinctively, unconsciously. I make the painting for the painting. I paint the objects for what they are.”
The public reacted with overwhelmingly negativity to the painting when it was first exhibited as was Lin’s Vietnam Memorial. These two artist reacted to what was happening in the world. That is different that your vague suggestion that they were somehow connecting to the public concerns.

I don’t think most good artists assume anything about audiences as you suggest. They are involved with the work, their art, their craft. Of course artists want their work to connect to something, someone, maybe idealistically even with everyone. But I doubt it is the reason why most artists make work. Some work is rejected by the public, some becomes an instant hit, and some only years later is realized as having had a profound effect on the history of art. This is what those who are currently obsessed with the neo-liberal language of engagement and inclusion fail to realize. Art just doesn’t work the way you say it does or should.

Here is my bottom line, after which I promise to give your blog a rest. I’m not saying that artists who work with communities in some type of interrelated capacity and participatory manner isn’t a rewarding and nice thing. Does that make the product of that relationship art? Maybe. Maybe not. It just depends. But I think your field needs to take a closer and more historical look at the changes you propose, what gets lost, and what is actually meant by all this chatter about engagement.

Are Lion King sequels, popularist propaganda and American Idol REALLY what ‘people’ WANT? Is art in any or all of its forms what ‘people’ WANT? Who drives all our supposed needs and wants? The people? Arts organisations? Artists? Etc…

My point is simple. People (of all backgrounds) need to have VOICES – a multitude of indicators voices, communities of voices. These narratives will sometimes find commonality, never completely conflict, always disagree. But we EVERYONE must have a voice. So perhaps it’s not about artists giving or not ‘giving’ people a voice but rather about how people can express their own authentic voices with or without participatory art, The Lion King, or even American Idol…

I’m just going to set aside my objection of how you continue to portray artists as a source of disengagement, like it was somehow our vault that “bubba or bobbie” doesn’t know the first thing about contemporary art, and instead ask if you could define what you mean by community engagement or art that is more community-focused?
What does a individual artists who is a “voice for the people” look like? Every artists wants to connect with some part of an audience, that’s a given. Even the most esoteric of art forms appeals to some audience. But how is giving an audience what they want not heading down a slippery slope of Lion King sequels, or populistic propaganda and an American Idol sensibility?

Whilst I don’t necessarily ‘blame’ artists for the disconnect of which you speak, I do think that things could change if more artists, especially the ones employed by large performing arts organisations, decided to take responsibility for communicating with the public about what they do.

I’m fortunate to work for a wonderful organisation called Gondwana Choirs that takes it’s outreach/engagement very seriously and has met with considerable success in doing so, particularly in the area of giving young indigenous Australians a voice (Here’s a video about one of our projects http://youtu.be/rBRcj2kzjjI ) One of the best things about it for me personally is the skills I’ve learnt in working with young people with little or no experience in singing and composing. I’ve been able to use these skills in many contexts alongside my work as a concert soloist here in Australia i.e. I’ll tour somewhere and on the first day I’m in town, I’ll work with a bunch of kids ‘on the ground’ as it were, composing a new work by playing clapping games or drawing with coloured markers or improvising some vocals, whatever… The very next night, the kids all turn up to the concert hall and see me perform (last time, it was a world premiere of a work by Philip Glass, with the man himself performing too). Sooooo, the point is this; the kids see me in both these very contrasting contexts (workshop space in a school vs. concert hall stage) and I think this is a pretty powerful way to shorten the distance between performer and ‘consumer’, for want of a better word.

Is it really too hard to get more performers to do this kind of hands-on creative work, with the blessing of their employers? I think it’s very achievable. I just think it’s super important that it’s all-hands-on-deck as far as this kind of engagement is concerned.

That said, re: your first paragraph, I agree completely. But regarding your second, I have said before I think the lack of public funding comes from the disconnect, not the other way around. There certainly is, though, a chicken or egg argument to be made.

RE: #3, my work is about highlighting the disconnect, identifying sources, and working on addressing them. If you have read much of my work you know that it is almost all about arts organizations. However, it would be a bit strange if I never mentioned artists. These posts are simply addressing another element of the arts ecosystem. Any artist’s attitude that looks down upon non-artists is a hindrance to the kind of engagement with the public that I think is necessary. But if such artists exist that is in no way a cause of the broad disconnect; it’s a minuscule part of the whole picture. It’s simply not helpful. (Unfortunately, artists do not carry enough weight in our current system to make much of a difference so they could not be to blame for the disconnect.) And I appreciate the fact that you have said before you know of no such artists. That makes me very happy. Perhaps my experience is largely a thing of the past. (More on that in my next post.)

Believe it or not I do understand and “get” artists. That’s my background, training, and experience. I regret that anyone reads what I say as mocking or looking down on the very difficult work that is the life of the creative artist.

Today while we still have the above science agencies as well as numerous additional ones we only have a gutted and useless NEA, an agency stripped of initiative and purpose by a political cultural war. We have politicians that want to fund wars but not our cultural institutions. We have a society that funds sports teams but not art education programs. We all say that the arts are one of the most important aspects of our intrinsic life and our extrinsic economy but we do the least in terms of public policy to show that we really believe that to be the case. Is there any reason why we should be surprised by a public disconnect when it comes to the arts?

Yet regardless of the fact that we as a society have done so little to foster the arts, that we as a society have in fact taken steps to devalue and even destroy our cultural institutions and artistic programs Mr. Borwick keeps finding it somehow important to build some revisionist case that artists attitudes are to blame for any disconnect between the arts and community.

Where or when did this fantasy land of artists working side by side with their fellow community members ever exist? Certainly it wasn’t during the grand reign of the church who controlled artistic production for it’s own goals. And certainly it wasn’t during the reign of wealthy patronage, which only served the small and controlling wealthy community. No, it was only when artists finally began to have their own identity and began to make art that was their own independent vision, their own individual style that art began to resemble anything that remotely comes close to being about community. It’s true the seeds of this independent vision required huge “heroic” fortitude on the part of artists to break with the controlling traditions and power of the past. This was no easy road to follow and artistic heroism should not be something to be mocked or looked down upon but rather admired by Mr. Borwick.

This heroic road opened up the idea of art becoming new things, and these new things could be expressed by anyone. Art, beginning with Millet and through the Impressionists and then finally into Modernism, had finally broken free of the control of the wealthy and religion. Artists were now free. Art was now free and isn’t freedom what America is all about?

As an artist today I’ve been trying to get my mind around why blogs such as yours and others in your field continue to dream up these theories that blame artists. Is it simply art policy maker’s lack of historical knowledge about the history of art? Is it the result of administrators and policy maker’s desperation to figure out a solution for their financial woes? Is it a lack of really understanding what artists actually do? Is it political beliefs?

Whatever the reasons, blaming artists as you do not only isn’t factual, it doesn’t help solve your problems.

JM