What is Artistic Failure? Part 2
Posted by: admin in Aging artists, Failed artist, Doomed artist, Definition of Artistic Failure, Artistic failure in AmericaThe second-most common definition of “artistic failure” is one applied to an individual artist who has reached an inevitable career-stage of decline, dessication, despair, and destitution. The more common term for this sort of figure is “failed artist,” as in, an artist whose career has run its course and cannot be revived. (Sometimes these artists keep working, despite all odds, and produce work in poverty-striken obscurity; more often, these artists give up the struggle and move on to other life work.)
But there is no universally accepted term for the artist who deemed a failure. Neither term above is as well known as “starving artist,” which has much of the same implication of the first two but no hint of the finality (a “starving” artist, while failing, has not yet “starved,” and still may have a chance to someday eat; that may be the onl carrot, so to speak, that keeps the artist going). For a time, in a dozen or so articles, essays, and profiles I wrote on artists in decline, I preferred the term “doomed artist” (for examples of such stories, g0 here, here, and here). This is mostly because “failed artist” seemed such an absolute judgment and because, at the time, I was more sympathetic toward artists than I am now and wanted to shift some of the blame for their failure away from themselves and on to the fates, society at large, or other forces.
In a quick graduate stint in arts management that I did two years ago, I studied what happens to artists as their career progresses (surveying more than 1,300 artists nation-wide–I will write more on this later). To avoid offending any of our survey subjects from the onset, we applied the carefully-chosen term “aging artists” to them. This is also a term that has been used by Columbia University in their studies of the welfare of artists–it’s a neutral term that at once protects these studies from bias related to scaring potential subjects away (who don’t want to be labeled “failed” or “doomed”), but this term also takes the meat right out of the argument. The Bush Foundation of Minnesota, meanwhile, has taken this sanitization one step further. It uses the term “Enduring Visions” to describe its new program of grants for older artists who may be neglected or forgotten by the wider culture.
Whatever definition you choose, the topic of the “failed artist,” has been growing in popularity in recent years. When Googled, the phrase gets a hit-count of more than 2.6 million. This makes sense: With more and more people studying art in college and taking it on as a profession (there was a 300 percent increase in self-identified artists between 1971 and 2000, culminating in there being 1.9 million artists in the 2000 census), there is more concern about failure than ever before among artists. It just follows–having more artists means more of them will worry about not succeeding.
Artists who have never made a dent in the art world are fixated on the idea of “artistic failure.” In 2001, Jonathan Kranz made a commentary on National Public Radio about being a “failed artist,” and being happy about the fact, as it meant, among other things, he didn’t have to worry about worry for the rest of his life where his food was coming from. This blog, meanwhile, talks about the writer’s personal experiences in artistic failure, and this blog takes umbrage at the fact that artists who fail are treated differently from other professionals who give up their practice (i.e., they are dubbed “failed artists”; or as the blogger writes: I have never heard anyone say, “He is a failed accountant.” When someone moves on from being an accountant, no one says anything negative. It is accepted that this person moved onto another career….As with any other profession, those in the arts grow and make various career choices depending on the opportunities available.)
Still, it’s not only the artists-who-never-were who think about artistic failure. Even very successful artists fixate on the idea. I have written several times about Alec Soth, arguably the most successful artist in Minnesota in recent years–once, right before he became an art star by appearing in the 2004 Whitney Biennial (note: this is probably my favorite arts journalism piece that I ever wrote; very worth a read, if I do say so myself), and once just after. The before and after versions of Soth were as different as red and blue. The before-Biennial Soth was carefree and funny, a serious worker who brought a mirthful perspective to his tasks (essentially coaxing complete strangers to let him photograph them). The after-Biennial Soth, harried and now concerned about each risky venture he was undertaking as part of his artistic practice, was ultimately worried about how long this string of success would last. Or, as I quoted him at the end of the post-Biennial story: “I know I got lucky. Just the fact that anyone knows who I am now is fascinating to me. That anyone in the photography world in New York has heard of me is a new concept…. It’s a great feeling. But I wonder if it’s going to last.”
The topic of the “failed artist” is an important one in the art world today, as the artistic economy is increasingly tenuous, as individual artistic failure mounts (even among once-successful artists), and as concern about eventual failure becomes a major facet of artistic life.
The Chronicle of Artistic Failure in America will refer to these facts of the artistic life, of course, and will remain fully aware of these definitions of “artistic failure,” often describing artists and other situations that fit the definition. At the same time, the Chronicle will forge a new meaning of the term “artistic failure,” one that means something completely different.
Stay tuned for the conclusion of this long defining saga…
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