Excellence

An artist in an indigenous society must create images and symbols that affirm the mythological and spiritual dimensions of the tribe, including its rituals and power figures that hold the tribe together. Under the sway of religion, the artist must meet the doctrinal and aesthetic demands required of objects and spaces, which compel faith. Donors and patrons of wealth, status and power who commission objects of reverence and worship put high expectations on the artist. Artists’ guilds had standards for inclusion. In essence, excellence in art over much of its history has been the consequence of artists banging against external standards..

At the end of the 19^th century in the West, things began to change. The artist saw himself as the mediator of personal excellence. Critics became voices that measured the success of artists’ work, and artists fought with them over it. If the artist was seen as a producer of commodities, marketing made excellence a monetary consideration.

Now at the beginning of the 20^th, I see a great muddle in the search for excellence. The words of critics take precedence over the art. Museums are under the thumb of donors, visitor numbers and political correctness. Galleries are struggling in many cities. Art continues to be marketed as if it were just another commodity. Excellence is a consequence of market and investment value. Excellence can even by measured by the celebrity status of the artist alone.

The way I see it, there has never been excellence without external standards or criteria to search it out and identify it. Each artist must search out his own external standards that will be a measure of excellence. Not to do so is unfair to the art itself.