Could it be argued that fine art ought to be assigned more 'value' than graphic design?
‘An interest in contemporary art was something that many people felt that they ought to cultivate, that seemed frightfully worthy if a little disconnected from life, and for which, in the end, there was never enough time.’ (J.Stallabrass, 1999, p.1)
Stallabrass suggests that perhaps art has become a trend rather than an art form, maybe fine art is only popular due to the fact that people follow the ego’s of todays fine artists, therefore ranking fine art as the most important and trendy of art forms,
Without trying to avoid my obvious bias toward graphics design, it must be said that now a days fine art, in my opinion, is redundant as an art form, it has been passed by every other genre of art and design to render it obsolete. Fine art over the centuries has become more and more of a fashion, a gate way for obnoxious people to self proclaim themselves ‘genius’s’. With the aim, it seems, for the pieces of art to become increasingly and deliberately more obscure while in most cases aesthetics has gone right out the window, ‘arts popularity has been purchased at the price of triviality’ (J.Stallabrass, 1999, p.2)
It no longer matters if an artist creates something that is pleasant to look at, but instead their main focus is how obscure they can make a concept. In a lot of cases now a days the most famous of artists rarely even touch the piece of art they are creating, they are purely an idea generator and an established name in the field of fine art, which is why it no longer matters what they create, people will pay millions of pounds for something just because it is associated with a name. which again links fine art to being more of a fashion than an art form. J . Stallabrass argues
‘The personality of the artist, far from shrinking, has greatly expanded, sometimes overshadowing the work. Furthermore, the very fact that artists do rather little to their material but nevertheless garner huge rewards leads to fascination with the artist as an individual’.
(J.Stallabrass, 1999, p.18)
After recently visiting the Tate Modern and seeing for myself the amount of money that is put into this area of art, it is just a sea of confused faces and mumbles of people utterly baffled by each piece of art they come across. Everybody too embarrassed to admit they have no clue what concept/ idea any of these “artists” are trying to convey, eventually having to rely on the artists own description posted at the side of each piece.
This is not what fine art should be and not what fine art used to be, back when art actually required skill to produce, artists such as Leonardo Da Vinci, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso to name a few.
Graphic design steadily increases in popularity and importance. the world is covered in graphic design, everywhere you look there are products that have obviously been created by a graphic designer, editorial and publications, advertising, type, packaging, branding, media, websites the list goes on, all these things have been through the hands of graphic designers.
Graphic designers use in depth analysis and research of the subject they are working on, to become some what of an expert in every brief they get, they use this research to generate designs that can constantly be improved and changed to fit certain set criteria, to eventually end up with a creative, unique and individual piece of visual communication, that not only looks good but also communicates a message to the audience. Barnard’s quote from the book ‘Graphic Design as communication’ explains what graphic design is. ‘a medium...... a mean of communication’ consisting in the use of words and images on more or less everything, more or less everywhere’ (Kaliman in Barnard. M, 2005, p.10). After considering this it is difficult to agree that fine art should be given more value than graphic design.
There is also some confusion when it comes to where fine art is meant to start and graphic design is meant to stop, when considering the arts, what are the main features that distinguish the difference between fine art and graphic design? Graphic design usually has a purpose, it often starts with a brief being set by a client and a graphic designer works with the brief and creates a piece of visual communication which will serve a purpose rather than purely being used for decoration, Not saying graphic design is not involved in decoration because it obviously is, the entire point is to create a visually pleasing piece of work as well as intending it to communicate to an audience. Whereas fine art is always very individual to the artist, depending on the piece it is generally based on the artists emotions, interpretation and opinions on a certain topic, these pieces of art can generally only be used for decoration and serve no other purpose than to sell itself.
So what does it mean if a graphic designer/ illustrator decide to do an exhibition and design several pieces of work that do not have a purpose or a way of communicating to an audience and instead are created purely out of the ideas, emotions and interpretations of the designer? Does this mean they are no longer a graphic designer but instead a fine artist while they do the exhibition? No I don’t think it does.
We get fine artists saying they are only the ‘pure’ (Barnard. M, 2005, p.12) art style, while ‘graphic design is commercial art’ and ‘illustration is the beginning of selling out’ (Barnard. M, 2005, p.12). These are very controversial words but still remain to be at the heart of many fine artists today. However, for this to be said and then to find that the best British fine artists will be producing a range of promotional ‘posters’ to promote and advertise the London 2012 Olympics. Surely if any fine artist produced a piece of work that was not just an individual representation, but instead had to involve visual communication as well as some form of audience recognition they would no longer be ‘pure’? Commenter Simondk explains his opinion
‘By calling them Posters, the Olympic Organising Committee puts them into a more commercial arena in my mind, where some of those parameters we are all familiar with come into play - communication objectives, visual messaging and an understanding of the audience to name but a few - and to my mind, it is here where these fail. I can admire and respect them as works of art, but I cannot see how they work as posters for the Olympics.’
(Commenter Simondk, P Burgoyne, 2011, Creative review website)
Through doing this they have resulted in producing a range of random, pointless and confusing posters to promote the first Olympic games to be held in Britain since 1948. Take fig.1 as an example by Tracey Emin
‘The works that are more about the artist/designer themselves than the project theme’ and fig.2 by Howard Hodgkin. Unfortunately this is the standard of piece we have to come to expect by our best fine artists in 2011 there is nothing pure about these posters. They represent nothing about sports or the arts, they are just advertisements for the artists and as they did in the 1972 Munich Olympic games, they will more than likely produce limited addition prints of these art pieces that collectors will buy to raise more money for the organising committee, which then suggests that this venture was more of a money making scheme than promotion of British art and design, otherwise graphic designers surely would have been used to better promote Britain as well as the Olympic games.
‘Amongst the design community there has been the suggestion that, had designers and illustrators been invited to respond to the same brief, the resulting images would have been a significant improvement on the artists’ he goes on to say, ‘In my experience, designers and illustrators work best when responding to a tight brief or solving a visual problem. Give them as open a brief as the 2012 artists had and the results will be just as mixed.’
(P Burgoyne, 2011, Creative review website)
fig.3 (by Astrid Stravo) and fig.4 (Sophia Wood) show 2 examples of a similar brief set by Creative review to raise awareness and funds for Japan in 2011, I know they are different briefs but I think you would agree that the communication and recognition of audience as well as the aesthetics of the designers/ illustrators work is much more appropriate and consistent.
In conclusion ‘fine art ought to be assigned more 'value' than graphic design’ is as statement that has been created by fine artists, for fine artists. Now a days graphic designers can do what fine artists do and more, the job of a designer is to communicate though visual media to result in a piece that shows individual and personal style from the designer as well as the message that has been set by the client, if either the aesthetics or the message is not there then the piece fails as a product of graphic design. However if a piece of fine art seems to have no understandable message as well as obscure aesthetics then some how it becomes a ‘masterpiece’ worthy of winning awards. The modern interpretation of fine art has condemned fine art as we used to know to the history books.
fig.1 (Tracey Emin) fig.2 (Howard Hodgkin)
fig.3 (Astrid Stravo) fig.4 (Sophia Wood)
Harvard referencing
Publications
Stallabrass. J (1999), p.01 ‘High Art Lite’, London, Verso
Stallabrass. J (1999), p.02 ‘High Art Lite’, London, Verso
Stallabrass. J (1999), p.18 ‘High Art Lite’, London, Verso
Kaliman in Barnard. M (2005) p.10 ‘Graphic Design as Communication’, Abingdon - Oxfordshire, Routledge
Arisman in Barnard. M (2005) p.12 ‘Graphic Design as Communication’, Abingdon - Oxfordshire, Routledge
Websites
Burgoyne. P (2011) ‘Opinion: The 2012 Olympics artists posters’ [internet] London, Creative Review, <http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2011/november/olympics-2012-posters-opinion> [date accessed 21/01/2012]
