The Jameson article discusses how art becomes a commodity in mass culture. Media helps to propagate this because it has the ability to repeat and disseminate this information.
I find this concept a bit difficult to interpret. Yes, I think that the strength of the media helps to take art (writings, film, etc.) and distribute it to a wider audience via our television, our radios, our cell phones, our computer and tablet screens, and jumbotrons. The media helps to get information out to people across the world quite quickly. People can be relied upon to share information that they see on Facebook, including advertising and they can also be relied upon to download computer and cellphone applications that distill and narrow the news focuses that we predetermine are interesting to us. However, I wonder exactly where this all began. To my thinking, art has long been a commodity. Michelangelo and DaVinci and other known artists painted, sculpted and sketched on commission to a privileged family. Certainly the privileged family could afford such luxuries and they were educated enough to understand the story that is portrayed in some works of art, but these commissions technically were commodities. The same with some of the artistic bibles that were either hand-written or printed but that had fantastical artwork in the margins. These were commodities that only the privileged or the church could afford. So, while I understand that Jameson believes that mass media helps to propagate art, I think that he really means that today's media brings art to the people in a much broader and faster fashion than ever before. Art now comes to us, whether we like it or not. We no longer have to go to a museum or a church to see art. We can simply look at its representation in a book, or look at it on our computer or smart phone screen.
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ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to say that the artist isn't receiving the benefit, because Jameson talks a bit about how the artist has to conform to certain expectations in order to prosper, so is mass media then reduced solely to a monetary focus?
ReplyDeleteI agree that art has long been a commodity, but I think the definition comes in the repetition of images and material in order to give the same entertainment value to its consumers. The art of DaVinci and Michelangelo, although exchanged for commission, were not commodities in the sense that one was painted and everyone had a copy.
I find this a difficult concept to understand as well, but I think that was the purpose of Jameson's article - to redefine what we understand as art and how it relates to an increasingly capitalised world.
I agree with what you are saying and I think you understand what you're talking about more than you think you do. I think the only interesting thing is that this is not a modern interpretation of dispersal of art. Jameson wrote his article in back in 1979, and not to say that art wasn't already on the move then, but it has such a wider media channel now, so I'm not sure that Jameson could have shed light on that just yet, but I think he would have (maybe, can't quite speak on his behalf) gone in the same direction that you did.
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