On
“Artistic Success”
by Bianka Guna
September 29th, 2011
by Bianka Guna
September 29th, 2011
I am sitting and
looking at the faces of people that surround me. The film has just ended, and
the lights have been flicked on. Somebody asks, “What is artistic success?”
I think to
myself, really? “What does artistic success mean”? People answer: money, fame,
and glamour. I think about living off one’s art, but in modest means—the joys
of living in a room of one’s own comfortably. After downsizing from a suburban
house (which contained my studio in it), to a small apartment in the city, I
missed the nights I spent surrounded by my paintings. It was just me, myself,
and I filling up my empty canvases and papers with colour, and that was enough
to awe me and send a rush of blood to my head. I kept to myself.
How does one
measure success? People in the room answer: a high education in art, monetary
rewards, awards, solo shows, juried group shows, art galleries, and museums
around the globe. Others say being elected into venerable art societies, being
published in serious books and catalogues, or acknowledgement from
knowledgeable or wealthy people that dream of being glued to the names of the
geniuses they have sponsored.
I remember one of
my beloved teachers, Peter Kolisnyk, a well-known artist in the ‘70s, but who
chose to live remotely at the end of his rich artistic life, mostly forgotten
by the media. He himself did not want to be a part of the “art circus”. He
painted daily in his small apartment and several times a month would give art
critique classes in order to make some money to survive. When we, his students,
complained about the vicissitudes of life—illnesses, divorces, rebellious kids,
politics, religion and war—and we did so often because we were all a bunch of middle-aged
haggard ladies, or when we complained about our art materials being too
expensive, Peter would say, “sell your jewels, your husbands, and mortgage your
homes!” We laughed, but he was dead serious.
An artist cannot
stop. The art becomes, for serious artists, a compulsion. We go to galleries,
read art books, watch films about art, write articles about art, teach it, take
classes with people we admire, and discuss art with like-minded people over
breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Art is our life, our religion, our air. What
makes us successful? I don’t quite know, to each his own. Perhaps just to be
human (true to yourself and aware of the human condition), to share what you
know with youngsters, or to be tough on moral crime. I am speaking of the kind
of crime people in the “industry” commit every day in the name of art:
abandoning their young, taking to substance abuse, deceit, accepting abuse from
gallery owners, misleading others, giving hope and leaving people dry, ignoring
what is quality and praising charlatans for some hidden motive. I keep all of
this to myself.
The commentators
continue: “artistic success means money, sales, recognition from the public”.
Yes, but what public? People that buy trinkets and souvenirs, or those that are
knowledgeable in the subject? I think being in the “wrong” galleries or
participating in the “wrong” shows is not healthy or flattering at all. Then
again, “self esteem is for sissies” some wise guy once said. Maybe a balance
between the two. Hard to keep. Can one exist as a people-pleaser, putting on
one’s different personas, and still excel in every one? The housekeeper, the
perfect mother of two, the lovely partner and wife, the “accomplished” career
woman, the feminist bitch, the nature lover, the city gal, the politically
correct or active citizen, the well-rounded middle-class traveller, the perfect
daughter, the considerate teacher, the atheist, the peace bringer…
We must always
make a choice. We excel in something and must give up other things. The
question then becomes, what are we willing to abandon? Be selfish like others
before you: betray your country, your lovers, your friends, abandon your
children, husbands, and parents, kiss ass, eat others’ bullshit, pretend you
are someone else… Why? Why can’t we be absolutely normal and great artists? Is
it not honourable to get up at 5 a.m., work hard until 6 p.m., and then come to
our families at dinnertime? Why are we not paid like plumbers, doctors, taxi
drivers? We went to school, we too are overqualified, and we too invest in our
careers. The artist must always doubt his art. As an artist, I would never go
up to a dentist, let’s say, and tell him his root canal does not make sense and
why did he not do it another way. But as an artist, one must face hundreds of
sermons from people and what they are looking for in “a piece of art”. People
who have become connoisseurs of “what art is” in the seconds before.
Nonetheless, to
have too much confidence in one’s work is another sign of artistic weakness. I
think of parents that raise their children into thinking they are the center of
the universe, raise them with distorted perceptions of their talents and
selves. To “believe in yourself” when you art so obviously lacks any spark or
glimmer of creativity is a bit of a dirty trick.
The question of
artistic success seems extremely intrusive, and I look around me at the puzzled
reactions of people confronted with it. I think to myself. To have a voice, to
be left alone and be independent of others, and create what you want when you
want, free of criticism and praise, that is artistic success to me.
