And I mean “bad” in two senses: one, he is not a very talented graphic artist, at least if we are to measure his talent for composition and execution based on his recent show at the Gagosian in NYC. (via NYTimes, “Dylan Paintings Draw Scrutiny”, Dave Itzkoff, Sept. 26, 2011) Billed as a kind of travel retrospective of his adventures in Asia, it quickly came to light that a number of his images are exact replicas of photographs by other artists, some famous and some not, with no attribution. Two, he is bad in a moral sense. There is this common litany on the web (and I have participated in it) that goes something like this:
- All art is plagiarism.
- All art is based on something else.
- Creativity is an illusion.
- Some mash-ups cross the boundary into apparent originality, even though true originality is impossible (The Grey Album is a good example.)
- Therefore, all use of any media in any other media with or without attribution is acceptable, although attribution is a common courtesy.
I can’t wrap my mind around how in any possible conception of “art” this is good art, or even acceptable art (that is, to be shown in a gallery as art), as opposed to a fun thing you might do in your free time. The great art in the world, and even the not-so-great art that is somehow effective, like the picture your kid draws in crayon and presents to you on father’s day, has a core originality to it that provides symbolic weight to the work. An original painting by Da Vinci is priceless; the poster is $9.99. A first folio of Shakespeare’s works is worth millions, the Arden edition is available in paperback by the boatload. Your kid’s crayon drawing is priceless, some other kid’s crayon drawing is a piece of garbage.
Being able to reproduce a work of art mechanically doesn’t also mean that the work’s symbolic weight can be multiplied. A copy is a copy, and in Art, a world wherein the artist is constantly struggling with what has come before, striving to go beyond it, a copy is a little bit pathetic, nothing beyond a novelty.
This is the classic example: A young boy becomes attached to a teddy bear. This is his favorite possession. This teddy bear goes everywhere with him. He sleeps with it. He cuddles it at night and he drags it across the playground. The boy and the teddy bear are inseparable. One day the bear is accidentally lost (mom drops it in the box of things to be donated to Good Will). The boy is devastated, he feels he has lost a friend. Mom buys him a new bear, an exact replica of the old bear. But it is not the old bear. The boy rightfully rejects the new bear. “But it’s the same! It’s exactly the same!” claims mom. “This isn’t my bear. It is an imposter!” says the boy, who has an excellent vocabulary.
The copy is worthless. Bob Dylan is a bad artist.
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