Blog: The Individual Artist and the Collective Concept of Freedom

There are five lessons here from Kandinsky – I will just comment on one today.
“Kandinsky did not intend for his theories to be prescriptive. Artmaking, he insisted, was about freedom. Nevertheless, there are several lessons that artists should heed if they are to meet Kandinsky’s requirements. We start with five below.” https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-artist-kandinsky

Lesson #1: Express your inner world, not the latest artistic trends.

I totally agree that artmaking is about freedom. Two points – here the concept of freedom – if art is about a collective freedom then it isn’t about the artists inner world? I think the point here is that the artist, does not have the power to create entities out of a void, the inner self being a void as the inner self is only interesting to the inner self and very subjective. This subjectivity makes art everything and anythings. In order to entertain the notion of freedom along with the self the notion of freedom needs to be objective not subjective. To make art totally subjective creates contradictions and a whole bunch of nothings. But then how does the artist make their subjectivity into the objective world that is out there and have it become a collective thought? The artist has the power to bring into existence an arrangement, integrations of natural elements that have not existed before. Artists have the power to change, creatively not forcefully, what is there into something beautiful. The self of the artist is not the self of the viewer or another artist, but linking this power to self and the notion of freedom there is then a collective creative concept of freedom that is a beautiful idea. This way of thinking as Kandinsky suggested cannot be prescriptive – yet at the same time can relate to freedom. It is a very tough thing to accomplish as we all fall into the trap of thinking our thoughts about freedom and self are the same as another individuals or artists thoughts.