Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Art technicians: The industry’s dirty secret, or all part of the process?

independent.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 159 posts

Re: Art technicians: The industry’s dirty secret, or all part of the process?

#71

Post by analog31 »

I'm a musician, and a lot of these ideas are familiar. But I wonder if the music scene is a little bit more mature or realistic (searching for a word here) about it. A work can go through a lot of different hands before it reaches an audience. People are fully aware of this. Yes, a few people get screwed, but others make an honest living as "technicians." It's been a reasonable side income for me. And except at the superstar level, the technicians might actually be doing better than the artists, especially if they can diversify their income sources a bit.

Even the instrument that I play... it bears the name of a master, but there's no secret about the fact that it was produced in a workshop, as the fiddles "made" by Stradivarius probably were.

Re: Art technicians: The industry’s dirty secret, or all part of the process?

#72

Post by pmoriarty »

extralego wrote: post #44
pastage wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My take on it is that it is the artist that brings the idea and make it come to light, they do this by letting other people do the work but they are still the visionaries and in charge of the execution of art. Good examples of ideas and execution is plentyfull in both software and art, just because you get both of them right doesn't mean you will succeed.

This just doesn’t represent reality of contemporary art. It’s a bullshitters game. These artists almost never even have a vision that is important to them. They behave as such, but the project motivations are consistently reflexive. They are just a response to what they thing will help their recognition. This is just not about expression. Historically, this is extremely wrong. Renaissance artists were the technicians…

"Renaissance artists were the technicians of course. That’s what they were known for."

That's only partially true.

While Renaissance masters usually had the skill to execute a fully finished work, and probably did so during their own apprenticeship, by the time they became masters they often had workshops of dozens or even hundreds of assistants who did almost all of the work for them. After the work was almost complete, the master might come in and put on some finishing touches.

There's lots of art out there these days that's misattributed to the master when it was actually done by one of his assistants in the workshop, whose training was usually centered around creating art that looked just like the master's.

Re: Art technicians: The industry’s dirty secret, or all part of the process?

#73

Post by billfruit »

Prominent artists having an array of assistants and understudies who do most of the detailing, while they themselves focus on more important matters like choice of subject, medium, technique and composition seems to have been the practice in the times of the Florentine and Roman masters, as I read from "Agony and Ecstacy".

Even architects do something similar, did Zada Hadid design every cornice and every pillar? I guess its the same with law firms also.

Re: Art technicians: The industry’s dirty secret, or all part of the process?

#74

Post by DaveSapien »

Simon is a friend and he's one of the chillest and professional guys I know. He makes furniture and whole shop/office/room set ups that are fantastic. A true master craftsman. If you're into interior design porn his instagram is worth a look https://www.instagram.com/simon_harlow/?hl=en

Re: Art technicians: The industry’s dirty secret, or all part of the process?

#75

Post by pdpi »

heavenlyblue wrote: post #46
sageabilly wrote: post #30

One of the longstanding examples of this that immediately sprung to mind is Dale Chihuly ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Chihuly ), the renown glass sculptor. Except Chihuly has not physically produced ANY of the glass sculptures attributed to him since 1979: "...he continued to blow glass until he dislocated his right shoulder in a 1979 bodysurfing accident. No longer able to hold the glass blowing pipe, he hir…

>> It's an interesting thought experiment about what art actually IS: is art the idea behind the piece? Is it the skill that the individual has in physically bringing the piece to life? If the person with the vision doesn't physically produce the outcome, is it still their art? I sincerely enjoy the fact that people regularly visiting Hacker News think that is an "interesting thought experiment", in the context of ar…

Except we attribute the product to the company, not the CEO. Wouldn't the equivalent be "This is a MyArtStudio piece of art", rather than "this is a piece of art by pdpi"?

Re: Art technicians: The industry’s dirty secret, or all part of the process?

#76

Post by flanban »

analog31 wrote: post #71

I'm a musician, and a lot of these ideas are familiar. But I wonder if the music scene is a little bit more mature or realistic (searching for a word here) about it. A work can go through a lot of different hands before it reaches an audience. People are fully aware of this. Yes, a few people get screwed, but others make an honest living as "technicians." It's been a reasonable side income for me. And except at the s…

More mature or more commercial?

You're talking about making money, but no mention of making music.

A better argument is that art is getting more technical. or even just that's it's getting physically bigger.

Also, when music is commercial it's still called music.

Art stops being art when it's made for money. It becomes illustration, design, decoration or some such thing.

Historically a lot of EU or American artists are pretty much trust fund kids. because if you need to think about money all the time... you can't make art. Art requires some modicum of genuine freedom and most people need money to find it.

I'm not sure how that works for music.

Re: Art technicians: The industry’s dirty secret, or all part of the process?

#77

Post by briankirby »

Nasrudith wrote: post #32

Sounds a lot like academia really and the open secret in many fields that the graduate "coauthors" were really the ones who did the work and the "main author" was the do nothing but compensated and credited more professor who hypocritically starts off every course stating plagiarism will not be tolerated. The lack of transparency is what makes both of them bad. It would be one thing if an established member vouched f…

I actually think it's almost the opposite in my experience as a physicist. Often graduate students are given the first author position, the position which indicates the most credit, even though in many ways the graduate student is closer to a highly skilled technician following the path laid down by their more experienced professor.

Re: Art technicians: The industry’s dirty secret, or all part of the process?

#78

Post by s3m4j »

wolfgke wrote: post #62
oytis wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then maybe these rich people should get the credit for the piece of art, because it's their willingness to pay their money that makes it valuable.

What you are joking about is in my opinion much more serious than it looks like at first appearance. Why do you think so many rich people love to spend lots of money to have e.g. buildings named after them (for example at reputable universities)? So your suggestion, of course refined gallantly in a way that makes it presentable in polite society, does not sound that absurd to me.

Considering the etymology and historic origin of "artist" as a skilled artisan. It's not even that novel an idea. Lots of things we consider art pieces are named after the buyer and not what we consider now the artist.

Re: Art technicians: The industry’s dirty secret, or all part of the process?

#79

Post by onemoresoop »

This is interesting but nothing new. As an artist I find the process and the intimacy with it as the most valuable part, that's where I learn and grow most. And the physical connection gives me most pleasure. I wouldn't get much value out of barking out orders and specifications to other artist technicians. On the other hand artist technicians need to eat too and it's okay that they get some work. It's embarrassing that they get no credit though but we know that is a facet of the human nature, it happens in almost every field

Re: Art technicians: The industry’s dirty secret, or all part of the process?

#80

Post by TinyPants »

pdpi wrote: post #75
heavenlyblue wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> It's an interesting thought experiment about what art actually IS: is art the idea behind the piece? Is it the skill that the individual has in physically bringing the piece to life? If the person with the vision doesn't physically produce the outcome, is it still their art? I sincerely enjoy the fact that people regularly visiting Hacker News think that is an "interesting thought experiment", in the context of ar…

Except we attribute the product to the company, not the CEO. Wouldn't the equivalent be "This is a MyArtStudio piece of art", rather than "this is a piece of art by pdpi"?

We identify and categorize products through branding, which often has very little to do with their corporate origin. The artist's name (and their story) is a brand.
Post reply on HN