ING: Starry Socks and Soaps

You all know this one.

Sometimes we ponder the intersection between good and bad. Let us ponder the distance, or not so much of, between emotion and intellect. That is to say, art and the money that comes with it.

This painting and its artist is one of the most marketable of its kind today, with a myriad of products on Etsy, Uncommon Goods, Society6 displaying the easily recognizable yellow-blue swirls and strokes. Socks, soaps, phone cases. I particularly see many phone cases. I actually needed one, so I looked for one, but there were too many variations and the mission was abandoned. I got to thinking, "What are the boundaries of reinterpreting art?" Do we have any, and do we have the right to enforce any, if these artists of those particular artworks are dead and cannot say whether they actually desire any boundaries, any enforcements, any limitations? And on the other hand, if we don't put limitations on interpretations, does it have a negative effect on art history and public education? After all, over-popularization suggests Pop Art-ification, a change that implies a change in label, intention, and most importantly, legacy.

Strictly speaking, this work isn't Pop Art, it's Impressionism. The amount of resources everyone has access to these days means famous artworks of various movements can easily become Pop(ular) Art. Everyone can take a picture. Everyone can use search engines. Reprints and reproductions are easier than ever, on a private scale. I wonder how those artists would feel about that.

The Courtauld Gallery got in hot water a couple years back for selling soap "ear"asers, as in an institution got in trouble for producing a monetary reproduction of a sentiment/notion/characteristic of a social phenomenon that was thought to be in poor taste -- a very common slip and a very common reaction. Think car advertisements of Princess Diana. However, we're talking about art here, not a politician or a businessman. The intention was social irritation, social conversation. Van Gogh always produced with the intention of emotional interaction, and towards his final years, I don't think he would've been entirely opposed to some monetary interaction as well. Maybe having some wouldn't have ended up with his ear that way.

Links

The Art Newspaper "Earaser"