Are you capable of removing the individual from the body of work, or is the body of work so intimately influenced by the artist that it would be impossible not to contemplate the two together?
I think something like acting would lead people to suggest to “leave the personal idiosyncrasies alone”, and just enjoy the role. But no one would *ever* be capable of contemplating a Van Gogh or Goya painting without thinking about how their minds were affecting the painting or being affected by their situation or mental condition. So I think that’s an intellectually lazy cop out . It’s much easier to look at the pretty, flickering image on screen rather than think deeply about something.
The meaning and intent behind the person vs their art is always a fine line. At times, the art isn’t meant to be about the artist but more about oneself and how one views and contemplates the art. In fact, if you picked the former of the initial question, let’s ask how you transcend that connection between the person and body of work? Lewis Carroll was a pedophile, and he wrote about little girls lost, and painted nude pre-pubescent children. Can you mentally get past that? Is your level of aesthetic breezy enough not to think about the impact of the author on the art, or tie the art to the artist’s meaningful will?
Artists, authors, actors are all meant to transcend those surly bonds of reality…. and most of the time I can look past an individual’s foibles to enjoy said art. But so much of the pathos is juxtaposed with what created the art. Mel Gibson as an anti-semite, Tom Cruise as a looney Scientologist, Chihuly being a shill.. or even Freud as a misognyist who covered up data on rape and incest…. how is it that people don’t recognize this, or continue on as things are normal and acceptable?
I guess that’s my real question – how is it that we socially accept and prevent vilification of people like this? Do we, as a public, simply not know? Do we not want to know… as beauty is truth and truth beauty?
I try to focus on the positive of all individual human contributions…. but there is a moment that a person is so irrevocably entwined with what they produce it’s impossible for me to separate. I don’t know why I would want to.
Sorry to say, my aesthetic sensibility is drastically altered based off of the full spectrum of data – the background of the work and person who created it.
POLANSKI! Possibly the most polarizing living creep – people worship him, people are reviled. I know he is the greatest living director, or at least one of them. I just can’t bear to watch his films (Ninth Gate being atrocious no matter how you view it). His most recent film is supposed to be unbelievable, and I am overwhelmed by his character so much it destroys his art, or at least my ability to comprehend it.
So…. is this an issue to you?
And why do we culturally marginalize sociopathic or dangerously deviant behavior in favor of allowing those people to create socially celebrated art? Why do we so often hear excuses for the fringe madmen where diagnoses would condemn a normal man…. as we find a modicum of explanation for their behavior in the hallowed halls of film, museums, etc as the words, “oh him….. he’s an artist” explain away the hurt and pain others have felt at their hands?