The tension between the creation of art and the influence of power is not a new one, and since the advent of sedentary societies and the division of labor, the two have often been inextricably linked to one another. While the manifestations of both art and power and their utility may shift in form, the nature of this interrelationship remains the same: through the utilization of the former the latter is not only able to influence the development of culture in service to their own political and economic aims, but to also validate these aims under the guise of “truth.”
It is this hegemonic dimension of power via patronage that seeks to render the artist as the culturally legitimizing force that both supports and sustains it. The flow of money from Cosimo or Lorenzo de’ Medici to the geniuses of the Italian Renaissance was not a purely benevolent gesture done from a sense of virtue. Rather, it cannot be discounted that these acts of patronage were but another means of propagating and validating the ambitions of the noble family against their competitors within the Florentine Republic. As more and more brand-oriented private corporations continue to establish inroads to the core of the broadly categorized world of indie music, I am reminded of the criticism that Marx leveled at Hegel – that history indeed finds itself reemerging. However, it does so first as tragedy, and then as farce. With the establishment and promotion of the PBR Music Foundation, there is again temptation of the artist to perform as a marionette for yet another corporate entity that has taken up the mantle of the great patrons of the arts.
Pabst Blue Ribbon LLC makes the most of their working class roots and their niche amongst the paupers of the creative communities, owing to the relative affordability of its flagship brand. They take this situation as being somehow indicative of a special relationship with the arts saying on their site: “For years, Pabst Blue Ribbon and members of the music and art communities have forged a bond to achieve the common goal of pushing creative boundaries.” This self-declared bond is presented as a coordinated relationship rather than an inadvertent one brought about by the desire for a cheap intoxicant. However, the uncritical assumption that this supposed bond is one of a symbiotic relationship that both parties have consented to allow for various platitudes and hollow rhetoric to be put forward, casting their distribution of capital as a gesture of sincere benevolence rather than a mere marketing tool. Yet, for all their posturing and proclamations, the inherent nature of capitalist enterprise means that their ambitions are aligned with the music and art communities only insofar as they are able to assist in the generation of profit; profit in which those communities will not have a share.
The development of a grant program by Pabst Blue Ribbon LLC, serves the dual purpose of the reduction of their tax liability (which is perhaps the greatest motivator of the influx of capital to the arts), while simultaneously asserting a claim that it functions as a legitimate benefactor and cultivator of local music scenes. Lest we come under the delusion that this relationship is in anyway one of mutual respect and coequal in nature, let us not forget that this “authentic” working class beer, which has been given new life as a cultural cliché – the affectation of the stereotypical hipster – is owned in part by the $2.9 billion dollar private equity group TSG Consumer Partners. Amongst their board of directors sits a member of Bain & Co., the institutional partner of Bain Capital, the private investment fund co-founded by Mitt Romney with assets exceeding $75 billion dollars. As the old adage goes: “follow the money,” and to do so one is able to link the funding of the DIY culture in Atlanta to within five degrees of the former Republican presidential candidate.
It would be foolish for any artist to take the words of any capitalist at face value, for if it is true that no one ever made a million dollars honestly then what does that imply for those who have made a billion? Truly, the devil in the details is found within the terms and conditions presented to any artist that wishes to submit a video and receive funding. In order to compete for these generous offerings, in a testament to the true relationship between the artists and corporate patrons, one relinquishes certain things:
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Before even a single cent is allocated they already have extracted value from the artist and positioned themselves in a dominant role. Even more galling is that this clause represents a boilerplate contract used by the majority of corporate patrons as they push their influence into the artistic sphere. That this is the case points to the underlying avarice inherent within any capitalist venture resulting in the recuperation of artistic expression as mere commodity. The lack of respect for the artist as an autonomous entity is revealed by the fact that to even be graced with consideration of patronage, one must readily submit themselves to their cause.
While the idea of grants and patronage seems to be to the benefit of the artist, what we are engaging with is little more than another attempt by a corporate entity to revitalize and legitimize their brand. It is a strategy that, through the public display of their patronage, the brand will be considered as more authentic and therefore more desirable for consumption. For Pabst Blue Ribbon LLC, this hinges upon the expectation that the supposed potential for exposure will overcome any sentiment on the part of the artist. Seduced by the desire for recognition above the distribution of material goods, it is precisely in achieving this that artists willingly participate in their own undoing.
Patronage of the arts has always and irrevocably been associated with the accumulation of power on the part of the benefactor. The act grants cultural cache to the benefactor and their appeal to the vanity of the artist, that they exist in a class above the plebeians, is done not out of pure admiration for their genius, but rather as political maneuvers to either make further gains or to consolidate their attained dominance. The artists thus seduced by the allure of recognition of their manifested will, but in order to obtain this sort of recognition they must do so in exchange for their servility; yet by relinquishing their sovereignty and autonomy as artists they rob themselves of the potential for a realization of the creative spirit as a power of its own accord, unfettered by the strings of puppeteers.
It may be that the artists who work on behalf of or in concert with PBR are obliged to subject themselves to this “degrading servility which these organizations exact from [them] in exchange for certain material advantages,” as said in the Manifesto for an Independent Revolutionary Art, out of a seeming necessity; one that would allow them to, if for but a moment, continue their work. Thus I make no attempt through this to assault the artists themselves, but rather the overlords who treat them as pawns. It is the degradation of the arts under the auspices of the market that has led to the dominance of corporate patrons. By interjecting themselves into the local music scene, they hold artists in thrall to a form of vampirism, where the purity of the artistic act is rendered as a means of revitalizing ailing brands or expansion into new markets. Since there is a scarcity of capital amongst emerging artists, there is the assertion that they are duly obliged to play the role of the pauper who exposes their very soul for but token appreciation. What utter hell we have found ourselves in, lying prostrate before those that leech the artist of their vitality and demean their sacred expressions as mere commodity?
In writing this I have undertaken numerous revisions, mostly for fear of causing undue offense to some, or that I may be misunderstood in my criticisms. I have desired – and desire still – to refrain from launching any accusation at artists themselves, for I understand all too well the deficiency of support that they receive. And so too do I know the depths of despair one is plunged into at the failure to achieve recognition having displayed the innermost depths of the soul.
The plight of the artist is one that is near synonymous with poverty and though I weep when I see erstwhile comrades or even dearer, friends, acquiesce to the subjugation of the creative spirit to capitalistic desire – in essence, I understand. Yet my understanding is akin to the fact that I do not begrudge one who has been crippled by ailments and disease and seeks to end their life, the finality of death and oblivion preferable than another moment of tortured existence. What we are witnessing is an act of mass suicide on the part of the creative spirit, the capitulation to its subjugation under the hegemony of the capitalist, and the servitude of the will of the artist to new masters. The terrible state of this condition leaves little room for saints and everyone has some blood on their hands. I wish not to seem hypocritical or in a position of moral superiority, yet I must hold allegiance above all to my conscious. It is this allegiance that obliges me to speak regarding to the willful embrace and promotion of this order. To those who do so, gleefully and with careless abandon, I must say, j’accuse.
Only one who acts with the utmost naïveté, ignorance, or villainous collusion would proclaim that art is meant to exist as a passive force, as mere affectation. Artists by their very nature and function are involved in the creation of cultural products. It is from this position that the application and consideration of creative activity is irrevocably linked to the manifestations of ideology and power. By willfully and proactively engaging in the subjugation of the artistic drive to the whims and desires of capitalist culture, the very essence of art shifts from being an end in itself — the great height of human expression and experience — and instead becomes but the mere means in which the dominant culture, one of capital accumulation and the exploitation of the authentic soul, maintains its superiority and consolidates its power.
Amongst the well-groomed lawns of the bohemian bourgeoisie in this city I have often seen a posted sign declaring, “War is not the answer.” Such a definitive statement demands that one knows what the question is. In our age of environmental degradation, the inequality of income and opportunity, the mass privatization of the public sphere, and the callous disregard for humanity in the quest for material accumulation, war is all around us. This empty platitude serves little purpose but to make the individuals who post it feel better about themselves; that by this assertion they proclaim their innocence in the sins of the world. But it is in times of such conflict that neutrality represents neither nobility nor virtue but instead serves to aide the continuation of the status quo. For artists to assert neutrality in its relationship to power, in the acceptance of this patronage without question, whether or not one acknowledges the existence of this war, they have thrown their lot in with the status quo and operate on its behalf. To say that this is the fulfillment of the artistic potential is at best a declaration of either woeful ineptitude or the incompetence of fools. At worst is is the willful and calculating maneuvers of villains. Still, as the creative spirit finds itself ensconced in an oubliette of branded affectation, even the most sincere of artists who become entangled in the snare of capitalist patronage are confronted with a moral choice.
Diego Rivera – Man at the Crossroads
In February 1934, an unfinished mural commissioned by Nelson Rockefeller for the Radio Corporation Arts Building was destroyed. The capitalist tycoon had approached Diego Rivera to do the work and took umbrage from the inclusion of Lenin at the head of a May Day parade, surrounded by a multi-racial group of workers. Despite offering a compromise to include Abraham Lincoln elsewhere in the mural as homage to a great American leader, an agreement could not be reached. The mural was thus left incomplete with Rivera returning to Mexico intent on completing the mural in accordance with his artistic vision. He used the money that was paid to him to fund the painting of a mural at the Independent Labor Institute that not only included Lenin but cast him as the central figure. Yet the robber barons in their pursuit of cultural validation were not always met with dissent.
In June of 1889, the Scotsman turned American Industrialist, Andrew Carnegie, published an article in the North American Review commonly known as “The Gospel of Wealth.” He espoused that the accumulated wealth of the various tycoons should be given to noble causes as a means to benefit society. Yet only days before the article’s publication the city of Johnstown in Central Pennsylvania fell victim to a flood brought on by the degradation of surrounding water retention structures. These degradations were the direct result from the construction of a private luxury resort for the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, an organization developed from the business and social connections of Carnegie Steel that catered to the wealthy elite. This macabre prelude to Carnegie’s gospel, and his position as cultural benefactor, is written upon the corpses of 2,209 individuals who perished in the deluge. This declaration of a new found sense of social responsibility and benevolence would never reach the ears of those who lived in the shadow of the newly anointed Saint of Capitalism, for the dead hear nothing and respond with nothing.
And so then, when viewing those amongst the creative community that loudly declare that they are free and sincere artists, yet act in service of the capitalist order and the reduction of art to the level of affectation, we see the inevitable formation of Girondist factions. Within their ranks are those who, whether by malevolent design or merely the collateral damage of a profound naivety, seek to subjugate the arts themselves to the whims and desires of that which corrodes the creative spirit. For art to have any continued relevance and actionable vitality it must make an enemy of these forces; those who seek to weaken the passion and revolutionary spirit of the artist and place in their stead capitalist apparatchiks as the gatekeepers of divine. Art must turn against those who would rob it of sovereignty and autonomy, and do so with ecstatic cruelty.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Lloyd Hannah is the frontman for Atlanta noise-punks Bataille. The opinions expressed in this article are his solely and do not necessarily reflect the attitudes and opinions of Immersive Atlanta.