The art world isn’t lacking examples of times where an artist or a piece of artwork just wasn’t appreciated in its time.
Vincent Van Gogh is perhaps the most prominent example, having hardly sold any artwork in his lifetime. Blues legend Robert Johnson’s work was nearly forgotten about until 23 years after his death. Freaks and Geeks probably would’ve been given a lot more episodes if people could foresee how popular its cast would eventually become.
White it’s a bit sad that Robert Johnson and Vincent Van Gogh literally wouldn’t survive long enough to gain a true sense of the impact of their work, at least we can be thankful that eventually they gained the popularity they deserved. That way, we could discover them, and many future artists could be influenced by their creativity. Thankfully, the Freaks and Geeks team were all able to find success elsewhere, and the show can now live on in perpetuity via streaming.
But these are exceptions. I often wonder, what about all the brilliant work that gets out there that no one will see because they don’t make a big enough splash right off the bat?
A Healthy Creative Life in spite of Clickbait Culture
In today’s creative economy, the immediate reception of a piece of work is prioritized above all else. If things don’t get enough excitement right away, they’re often buried in the algorithm, canceled half-way through their first season, or ignored by publishers under the premise that they won’t sell well enough. A subplot on a series I watched featured an actress whose new show debuts to much applause, only to be canceled by the next morning simply because it didn’t perform as well as the streaming service was hoping. This is not too far removed from reality.
The problem with this, is that not all great work is meant to make an immediate impression, and some of the best pieces of art take more time and attention to appreciate. I recently came across a review I wrote for a student newspaper back in the day for Sufjan Stevens’ Age of Adz. It was a fairly critical review where I was unimpressed by his shift to a more electronic sound after a couple good albums taking an analog approach. Funny enough, I ended up listening to that album a lot over that fall and gradually fell in love with every track. To date it’s one of my favorite albums, but you’d never guess that based on my initial reaction.
Unfortunately, it’s a lot harder for works of art to be met with that level of patience that allows for them to shine. Pandering to immediate impressions means loading up storytelling with the artistic equivalent of artificial sugar. Something that can appeal to our most surface level reactions without aiming for anything deeper. While I believe things like short form social media video can be an artistic medium, it also sets up our society with so many opportunities to become enthralled with these shallow hits.
As a creative, you end up with a sense for how this game is played. Since much of my work revolves around marketing for nonprofits and organizations, I’ve attended plenty of conferences and seminars on how this game gets played. And sometimes you can get caught up in this conundrum of not wanting to play the game and sacrifice your artistic integrity, while realizing that if you don’t play it, nobody will end up seeing your work.
It’s something I’ve kind of wrestled with as well. If nobody sees the work you want to make, what’s the point? At the same time, if millions of people see your work, but it is so punched up for mass appeal that it’s no longer the work you wanted to make, what’s the point there?
The most ideal outcome, as I’ve come to see it, is to learn how to play the game as much as you can until the point where it conflicts with your artistic vision. At that point, it can take a backseat.
I’m saying that as an idealist who finds it pretty unlikely that any person’s purest artistic version will be so individualized to themselves that it will have a potential audience of zero. Every creator exists somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, between pandering only to what’s popular, and saying only the message authentic to them.
Finding that sweet spot takes ongoing experimentation, reflection and self-evaluation. These lines are constantly moving as technology evolves and public tastes take new forms. But it’s worth doing in the end. Because even in a culture that thrives off virality, there’s no substitute for a consistent, creative commitment.
I believe that AND is one of our most powerful words. The yes and core belief of improv holds true across the board. Being able to affirm something that exists outside of you then add to it with your own experiences and heart us how so many things come together. The power of and is what it links together. When it comes to the act of making the world a safer place for marginalized people, it benefits us to remember that in some way we all have our sphere where we’re disadvantaged. Yes some people have it much harder than others, but if you look at it, there are very few people who don’t have an intersection with a way of being that deals with an uneven playing field. Gender, race, income, and the sooner we move from what about to AND- let’s create a world and embrace the ideas that resolve poverty AND climate AND xenophobia etc… the sooner we realize all our struggles are interconnected and that create s our chance to connect more deeply with one another.