Obama-era music and art?
Our mirror neurons are firing like crazy. With a new president we get a whole new set of art standards (artistic elements, styles, genres, colors, etc.) that are suddenly allowed, because as humans will love to follow and imitate. Obama supposedly likes jazz--so we'll get more jazz and jazz musicians wearing 50s-era suits with skinny ties. (Obama has already used music as a metaphor when he commented that "America is like jazz with 'Blue Notes'")
The power of an American president has the power to 'subsidize' the creation of certain types of art and industrial design. In the Bush-43 era, one could posit that he allowed SUVs, Humvees, and anything Texas to be possible. Of course this is not a deliberate dictatorial act, but humans behave as it is so, and consequently follow the leader. (Again, mirror neurons may be the culprit. See Marco Iacaboni's book, Mirroring People)
Most art is created based on intuitive and/or reactive positions. Art may begin with ideas, but those ideas, while they may seem to be created by the artist's muse, may be more at the mercy of the artist's muse being influenced by social pressure, whether the artist is aware of it or not. Andy Warhol is a perfect example of this interplay between the ethereal muse and the shifting tectonic plates of world culture and socioeconomic conditions. Kennedy made the silkscreens more popular than if Kennedy was less of an icon. Icons (and iconic ideals--like the 'green revolution') are extremely compelling forces for artistic musing. They are the bedrock of everything a culture invests its energy into making, as art ultimately needs acceptance and validation in order to thrive.
All artists react at some level to a zeitgeist, but it is an absurd idea that any artist of any great merit is blown around by popular ideals. There are many things that are brought into the studio to prepare for creative acts--not only popular icons. Also there is the huge factor of time. i.e. the time it takes to make a piece of art. Warhol was brilliant in that he compressed this element into a smaller increment--making art with the speed of a copy machine, and looking like it might have been done in a purely mechanical process. Involvement with craft typically eats up over 80% of an artist's resources, because essentially it is perspiration, not only inspiration that is driving it.
As critics who are not doing any kind of artwork are wont to believe, art is not necessarily created as a purely reactive act. We will continue to do it unwittingly nevertheless, and the critics will champion the idea that artists are here solely to simply imitate or mirror the era or its icons. We hope that artists aren't that feckless, but its a comforting thought that we have a guy in the White House that will set some interesting things in motion, even if they are purely reactive.
In sum, it is my prediction that Obama is going to set the stage for a more creative era, valuing the artist more, rather than the capitalist. Obama himself is a type of Artist in that he is influenced by, and emulates his heroes. Emulators are not typically geniuses or trendsetters, but rather people that can reprocess what they have gleaned from existing resources and shape into a variation or 'derivative work'. That in itself can describe Obama-era art and music.
The power of an American president has the power to 'subsidize' the creation of certain types of art and industrial design. In the Bush-43 era, one could posit that he allowed SUVs, Humvees, and anything Texas to be possible. Of course this is not a deliberate dictatorial act, but humans behave as it is so, and consequently follow the leader. (Again, mirror neurons may be the culprit. See Marco Iacaboni's book, Mirroring People)
Most art is created based on intuitive and/or reactive positions. Art may begin with ideas, but those ideas, while they may seem to be created by the artist's muse, may be more at the mercy of the artist's muse being influenced by social pressure, whether the artist is aware of it or not. Andy Warhol is a perfect example of this interplay between the ethereal muse and the shifting tectonic plates of world culture and socioeconomic conditions. Kennedy made the silkscreens more popular than if Kennedy was less of an icon. Icons (and iconic ideals--like the 'green revolution') are extremely compelling forces for artistic musing. They are the bedrock of everything a culture invests its energy into making, as art ultimately needs acceptance and validation in order to thrive.
All artists react at some level to a zeitgeist, but it is an absurd idea that any artist of any great merit is blown around by popular ideals. There are many things that are brought into the studio to prepare for creative acts--not only popular icons. Also there is the huge factor of time. i.e. the time it takes to make a piece of art. Warhol was brilliant in that he compressed this element into a smaller increment--making art with the speed of a copy machine, and looking like it might have been done in a purely mechanical process. Involvement with craft typically eats up over 80% of an artist's resources, because essentially it is perspiration, not only inspiration that is driving it.
As critics who are not doing any kind of artwork are wont to believe, art is not necessarily created as a purely reactive act. We will continue to do it unwittingly nevertheless, and the critics will champion the idea that artists are here solely to simply imitate or mirror the era or its icons. We hope that artists aren't that feckless, but its a comforting thought that we have a guy in the White House that will set some interesting things in motion, even if they are purely reactive.
In sum, it is my prediction that Obama is going to set the stage for a more creative era, valuing the artist more, rather than the capitalist. Obama himself is a type of Artist in that he is influenced by, and emulates his heroes. Emulators are not typically geniuses or trendsetters, but rather people that can reprocess what they have gleaned from existing resources and shape into a variation or 'derivative work'. That in itself can describe Obama-era art and music.
