Could it be argued that fine art ought to
be assigned more 'value' than more popular forms of Visual Communication?
This essay
will consider five different aspects of the contemporary fine artist and graphic
designer to determine whether art should be assigned a higher value than
graphic design, and why it is perceived as being a higher regarded practise. The
artist and designer have a very different role in the media, and this essay
looks more closely at the group Young British Artist’s, who emerged towards the
end of the 1980s. Their careers begun with the recognition and sponsorship of
the art dealer Charles Saatchi, and because of that, artists such as Tracey
Emin and Damien Hirst are well recognised in the public eye, and have caused
much controversy over their work, possibly due to the fact that the ‘artists do
rather little to their material but nevertheless garner huge rewards’ (Stallabrass, 2006, p. 18). They now have a
celebrity status, and their life is just as publicised as the work that they
produce, whereas the designer isn’t mentioned half as many times in the mass
media. The second point this essay will look at is the commercial value of fine
art and graphic design, and how this has an impact on dividing high and mass
culture. If it is commercial value what determines which practise should have a
higher value, then it is fine art, but if it is the social value that is the
most important factor, then the next point on the priorities of graphic design
and fine art, suggest that it is graphic design which is more significant. The
fourth point leads to the argument about the meaning and intention of fine art
and graphic design, as design has the intention of helping solve global
problems visually, while the young British artists have caused distress to
society in the past, most notably with the painting Myra by Marcus Harvey, who described her as someone ‘we all want to
shag’ (Stallabrass,
2006, p. 213).
The final argument will discuss why art has a perceived higher value than graphic
design, and whether it deserves to be assigned more value, or whether this is a
misconception which has been fuelled by art dealers, art critics and
contemporary artists alike.
It could be
argued that one of the reasons why contemporary fine art is seen to be of a
higher value than graphic design is because of the attention that the Young
British Artist’s have gained in the mass media. The artists personality can sometimes
be ‘overshadowing their work’ (Stallabrass,
2006, p. 18),
and this has ‘greatly expanded’ (Stallabrass,
2006, p. 18)
during recent years, possibly due to the highly publicised and well documented
lifestyles of these artists and their work, which are often intertwined very
closely. However, the designer is
relatively unknown; packaging, logos, promotion or way-finding graphics aren’t
signed by the designer or presented in a gallery or have the publicity, and
therefore don’t have the celebrity status that many contemporary artists have.
Even though graphic design is placed everywhere – billboards, bus shelters,
television, shop signs etc – the designer is often overlooked, as they aren’t
being featured in tabloids and broadsheets, unlike these artists. This leads
onto the next point which discusses the value of the work, as opposed to the
artist.
One of the
things which distinguish fine art and graphic design apart is the high and mass
culture which surrounds them. There are two reasons why graphic design is seen
to have less ‘value’ than fine art; firstly because of the commercial value of
it, as design isn’t sold to one person, it is created for mass production so
that it is affordable for everybody, whereas the contemporary fine art discussed
in this essay is targeted at people part of an avant-garde group. Secondly,
graphic design communicates to everybody, making it a universal form, whereas
art only targets upper class people who can understand it. Tracey Emin supports
the idea that art is seen as high culture as she says ‘art is often meant for a
privileged class’ (Stallabrass,
2006, p. 36)
unlike her work which she says is ‘meant for everyone’ (Emin in Stallabrass, 2006, p. 36). These statements can
be seen as hypocritical of her as one of her pieces sold for £130,000 and this
shows that her work is aimed at a specific elitist market, as this is not
affordable for the vast majority of the public. This can be supported by
Michael Findlay’s statement that is if people were to be given a large amount
of money, ‘the overwhelming majority would choose the house’ (Findlay, 2012, p. 13) rather than a piece
of artwork.
A lot of
modernist designers saw their work as a way of ‘eliminating aristocracies’ (McCoy, 2004,
p. 40)
and had a ‘fervent hope for a levelling’ (McCoy, 2004,
p. 40)
of the class division which engulfed Europe. Even though this statement was
written about designers in the mid twentieth century, the clash of high and
mass culture still exists today, as I discussed in the previous paragraph. This
also shows the difference between artists and designers as this is a high
priority for a designer, to create something which is aimed at people from all
different cultures and class. However, it can be suggested that artists just
create art for art’s sake, as Julian Stallabrass says the current Brit art has
a ‘fuck-you attitude’ (Stallabrass,
2006, p. 21).
This suggests that the artist doesn’t care about the effect their art has on
people, and they will create anything they want to. This differs to designers who wanted to have
a ‘symbiotic agreement’ (McCoy, 2004,
p. 41)
amongst ‘mass societies’ (McCoy, 2004,
p. 41)
and create a design language which was understood by everybody, which leads
onto the next point about designs priority being problem solving and how this
can be seen as an uncreative process; which could suggest why fine art is seen
to be more highly regarded than design.
‘Design is first and foremost a process of
analysis and problem-solving and isn’t always tied to the making of artifacts’ (Nakaruma,
2004, p. 55).
Terry Irwin suggests here in her essay ‘A Crisis in Perception’ that the design
solution doesn’t always involve an artefact. She considers the analytical side
of the problem-solving to be enough; not contemplating that the craft and the
‘making of artifacts’ is a fundamental part of the process, and is how the
solution communicates and informs the audience the message which is trying to
reach them. Her ignorance to the complete process and concept of design only
fuels the idea that fine art should have a higher value than graphic design.
This is supported as Nakamura wrote that ‘It always seems like design will be
the bastard child of the art school’ (Nakaruma,
2004, p. 57),
as though the practise is looked down upon by the people who regard fine art to
be superior.
However, part
of Irwin’s statement is true where she says that design is ‘first and foremost
… problem-solving’, as there are some problems which to be solved means the
aesthetic quality has to be compromised.
An example of ‘contemporary issues’ (Bilak, 2004,
p. 27)
are discussed in an interview with Peter Bilak, who discovered that when
designing type, he is now faced with several problems such as making the font
work in both high and low resolution, and how to work on both print and screen,
therefore supporting the idea that practicality and functionality come first,
and perhaps compromising on the design of his work. These are contemporary
problems as they only began when the computer was invented, and designers
started to use computers for design involving type.
It can then be
argued that contemporary fine artists, for example Tracey Emin who is part of
the visual group Young British Artist’s, can completely avoid any type of issue
within her work because it ‘takes no principle terribly seriously’ (Stallabrass, 2006, p. 21) and it can therefore
consist of whatever she thinks is creative without having to think of the
functionality of the practicality of whatever she creates. Although a recurring
theme in her work is her personal life which people can relate and respond to, she
doesn’t have a specific message directed at the audience. As the art dealer Charles
Saatchi collects her work, and other pieces from the YBA’s for an extremely
high price, this allows her to able to be in a financial position where she is
able to recreate similar pieces, without having to aim it at anyone, unlike
design, which isn’t featured in galleries or sold to a dealer, and has to solve
a public communication problem in order for the designer to earn money from it.
The idea that
artists are a lot more ‘creative’ than designers is also supported by this
statement that ‘fine artists enjoy much more artistic freedom and independence’ (Barnard,
2005, p. 164).
The ‘freedom’ and ‘independence’ that Emin has could arguably come from her
financial security and celebrity status from being what is known as a ‘Saatchi
artist’ (Stallabrass,
2006, p. 207),
as he, and the work that he collects, is very well known in the art world and
in the media. Charles Saatchi collects contemporary art, which is often very
shocking, and because of the price which he buys and sells the art, he has
helped define the value of contemporary fine art. This doesn’t mean to say that
art has a higher value than graphic design though, as Stallabrass says that the
artists ‘produce half-hearted crap knowing he’ll take it off their hands. And
he does.’ (Stallabrass,
2006, p. 207).
This suggests that the artists don’t value their own work, and it can be argued
that it doesn’t deserve to be a more respected practise than graphic design,
which leads onto the next point, which is about the differences between the
meaning and intention of graphic design and contemporary fine art.
Design for the
world is an organisation which aim is to help solve issues which include ‘health,
education, development and AIDS’ (Schmidt,
2004, p. 18).
These topics affect a range of people, and this suggests that designers make a
conscious effort to communicate to the world, and produce design for a purpose
which can raise awareness of issues and help solve international problems. On
the other hand, Damien Hirst says of his work ‘I sometimes feel I have nothing
to say, I often want to communicate that’ (Stallabrass,
2006, p. 27).
That statement can be seen as selfish here, as he isn’t using his influence in
the art world to contribute to worldly issues or communicate a message, which
shows a distinct difference in the recent times of the purpose of art and
design. It strengthens the argument that
fine art doesn’t have a meaning or message, which was discussed in the previous
paragraph that artists like Hirst create ‘half-hearted crap’ (Stallabrass,
2006, p. 207).
To support the idea that Hirst is selfish, Stallabrass describes the
contemporary postmodernist movement as ‘obscene’ and ‘trivial’ (Stallabrass, 2006, p. 21), as though it is
pointless. This suggests that fine art shouldn’t have a higher value than
graphic design because it serves no function, and from Schmidt and Stallabrass’
opinions, they seem to regard contemporary fine art with contempt and
abomination, which moves onto my next section as to why art has a perceived
higher value than graphic design.
One of the
arguments that suggest fine art deserves to have a higher value than graphic
design is ‘the perception that art has more to say about a culture’ (Barnard,
2005, p. 166).
This could be because there is a permanency to fine art, as paintings and
exhibition pieces sit in a gallery or museum which are preserved and documented.
They are essential parts of the past so that people can gain historic knowledge
from them and learn about past cultures and eras. Although this essay has
discussed fine artists from the 21st century, there are a lot of
well-known artists from a different time and era such as Vincent Van Gogh who
is from the Netherlands, Leonardo Da Vinci from Italy and Pablo Picasso from Spain.
It could be argued that society sees fine art as a more culturally
comprehensive practise because these artists are more acclaimed and celebrated
than designers, who aren’t as well known with their work. Although visual communication
has always existed, the term graphic design wasn’t used until early in the 20th
century, and could be why it isn’t seen as permanent as fine art, or isn’t
thought to say as much about culture. Also, because ‘graphic production is not
long-lasting’ (Barnard,
2005, p. 166),
this could be why graphic design is valued less when compared to fine art is because
it suggests that artefacts such as packaging, magazines, signs, way-finding
graphics and advertisements aren’t permanent and therefore don’t say more about
culture because design is continuously changing and evolving. Although it is a
fast-paced industry, design can say a lot about culture because it has to
appeal to a variety of target audiences, there are designers from all over the
world and since the 20th century there have been many movements
which have since influenced modern design and other forms of visual
communication such as Constructivism, the Bauhaus and the International
Typographic Style. These are all contributing factors as to why the perceived
idea that fine art says more about culture than graphic design is false, and
they are both as significant as each other here. To support the idea that art
isn’t as significant culturally when compared to design, Steven Heller says
that ‘many objects of graphic design are preserved and studied’ (Heller, 2004,
p. 12)
suggesting it has just as much to say about a culture as art does, because of
the time and consideration that has goes into graphic design, even if the final
production isn’t always ‘long-lasting’.
Even for the
design which is ephemeral it can be argued that ‘graphic design is there to
perform various jobs or functions’ (Barnard,
2005, p. 172)
and if that is a transitory job, then it shouldn’t be valued less than art
which is permanent if it fulfils its purpose. Many design jobs are temporary
such as advertisements and launches of events or films, and if the designs
function is to inform, educate and persuade an audience, then it should hold
more value to society than fine art, which isn’t seen to serve a purpose. However,
Noel Carroll suggests that even art for art’s sake ‘is still functional’ (Barnard,
2005, p. 174)
because it hopes to engage and enthral the viewer and this can be considered as
a function. It can be supported that art does engage with the viewer, because
people buy and collect art, they post blogs on pieces, converse with each other
about art, and a career can even be made out of it – being an art critic. This
could suggest why ‘art critics never worry about the future of art’ (Siegel, 2004,
p. 168),
because there is a function to serve, and as long as contemporary artists are
producing, or rather getting their assistants to produce their
attention-seeking work for them, there will always be something to critique.
In conclusion,
there are different arguments on whether art or graphic design should be
assigned more value, and the answer depends on how people define the word
‘value’. If value means the commercial value of work, then it is contemporary
fine art which ought to be assigned more than graphic design, as the artists
discussed in this essay have a very high market price for their work, which
only an upper class group of people can afford, such as Tracey Emin’s piece ‘It’s The Way We Think’, which was an
appliqué blanket reaching £130,000 at auction. This differs with graphic design
which is targeted at everybody, and is mass produced to make communication
reachable and affordable to a large range of people. However, if value is based
on the social value of how it benefits people, then graphic design should be
assigned more value than fine art, as the designers’ priority is to educate,
persuade and inform people about everything. Design is a powerful tool in
making people aware of global issues, such as the NRDC campaign to make people
aware of global warming where the designers created a water dispenser sticker
of the world, and the slogan ‘World’s drinkable water supplies are running out.
Stop Global Warming’ (Abduzeedo,
2008).
This shows the priority of design, whereas the purpose of Hirst’s work is to
communicate how he has ‘nothing to say’ (Stallabrass
J. , 2006, p. 27),
suggesting that his art doesn’t have a high social value. If historic value is
the most important factor, then it can be suggested that fine art has the
higher value, because artwork is displayed in galleries and exhibitions, and it
gives an insight to historical eras. However, since photography was introduced,
that started to document the world giving a more accurate insight to history,
and what life was like. Graphic design also comments and communicates history,
whether it is advertising exhibitions or publishing historical text, therefore
it can be argued that these forms of visual communication should also be
assigned historical value, even if it is a more recent form. The last point which
this essay discussed was about the value of function that fine art and graphic
design have, and how even though graphic design is known to serve a function to
people to communicate, it can be argued that the function of art is to
entertain and intrigue the viewer, meaning they both have a job to perform.
This is a contributing factor to the overall decision that art cannot be
assigned more value than graphic design because arguably, they both serve
function to society, even if they are extremely different.
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