Art As Property

Featured image: Neo

Do not Bastardize your Art work.

An art object belongs to someone, an artist, an art lover, an art collector. This belonging is property. Who has the rights to this piece of property? Is it the artist, the lover, the collector, or someone else? That's a good question. Could the property belong to the government, or the market, or a patron? For me, when I am creating, anytime I begin to think about whose property this art object belongs to, it, the object, ceases to be art. There is just something about art that needs to always, always be free and independent, both when it is created and when it is collected. If the work at any point is governed by another, other than freedom, independence, and choice, then, for me, it ceases to be art.

The artist, the collector and the lover, all have the right to trade their property with another. and during these trades if the very elements that make the object art, change then they work was never art in the first place.

For example, when I create a work, in my heart I know it was created freely and independently, for no other reason than to be a unique work of art. (That doesn’t always happen, but that is always the goal.) The key is that when the work becomes property and the property is traded for its fair value, the fair value is determined by its independence, uniqueness and its ability to maintain its freedom. These sacred elements do not change no matter now many times this property changes ownership. If the work is no longer free and independent then the work was never art in the first place.

Artists need to produce in order to support themselves and their life. If they choose to support themselves with their creative works, then they are choosing a life of independence and individuality.

If an artist chooses to give away their work, then they are giving away their very soul and life. So, I don’t understand why an artist would choose to give away their work and their soul. If an artist chooses to create and try to support their lifestyle through their creativity and art but cannot, then they need to make different choices. Do not choose to bastardize your work.(Bastardize defined as: change 'something' in such a way as to lower its quality or value, typically by adding new elements, it is to corrupt, contaminate, dilute, spoil, pollute.) Instead, define the work and yourself and the artist.