Never trust an out there -self-proclaimed- professional artist(e)
I did not want to make the title too long. More accurately this is almost entirely about “Autonomous Artists” or “Performance / Conceptual Artists” weirdos I really can’t be bothered becoming close with because I do not trust them. They very often make those self-descriptors and activity almost their entire identity and main preoccupation.
I do not mean all artists of very stripe! Nor am I referring to people who dabble in art or have art as a side hustle or hobby! Hell, my SO adores drawing, quite a few days of every week even.. I love seeing her do that.
Nor am I really talking about musicians, illustrators, comic book artists or designers and the like. I have had plenty of decent to great experiences with people like that.
I do not do well with those other people, the ones I do mean. Far too many I knew were unstable, unkind and they made that an issue for those around them. Often I have hoped to come across a major exception. I still do hold out hope, one day perhaps! I am sure they exist. But… “not holding my breath”. 🤷🏻
I worked in an audio-visual technician capacity for a few years at a now defunct but decades old rather large and fairly famous art academy / art gallery in the Netherlands. I was in daily contact and worked alongside plenty of famous artists, as well students there, artists in training. This amounted to a lot artists, many of them conceptual or autonomous.
Also, I lived or interacted with many artists of all stripes in squats and share-houses for years, and dated two of them, for months. I helped them all with various things, what I got back,...and their behaviour, let's just say it certainly was suspiciously often, rather selfish and unkind. Far too often weird, selfish or broken, or untrustworthy, and they treated too many other people poorly, were emotionally unstable. This would often become apparent once I really got to know them. Whether they were baaarely scraping by, or actually doing well, didn't really make a difference.
They all had certain traits I would also not like in a plumber or race car driver or any profession. In that sense it is not about art. It is about the correlation.
One experience: I lived with two professional female full-time autonomous artists in a large, very organized, beautiful building with several communal living groups and clear structures. They had joined through an application process that took a few weeks, also designed to keep out people that were not good for the building and project. However, it wasn’t that hard to get in at the start, at that time -when they joined- the place was desperate for residents.
I thought majority of their art was bit ugly and quite some of the time required very little talent or training, I could have made half of it, which is saying a lot, I have very little artistic talent. Stupid art/artists. The end. 😉 I am joking. I really am a slight cultural barbarian by choice in a few areas, my taste is probably questionable there.
What I did actually find objectionable was that they either did the few hours of mandatory DIY chores halfheartedly/badly or not at all, cutting a lot of corners. These DIY hours were sorely needed. It was a very old building, and everyone had these hours in their lease as a pre-condition, it was a way for all us to pay part of our rent and ensure the place would improve.
Even worse, one of them was really odd and ‘lovesick’, always forever dating someone new, and sometimes people who, like her, were only just about managing to keep it together mentally. She left a trail of unhappy exes.
There were two men deep in their thirties, living in the same building as she and I. These guys had to see each other every day, in the halls, at meetings, at the restaurant that was part of the building and more...
She was in a relationship with man one for a while, they had a child together, then she suddenly broke up with him and immediately got together with man two. There might even have been some overlap or cheating, I think so, but I’m not 100% sure anymore, been a while, had not thought about them or very infrequently for ten years or more.
I was never close friends with any of them really, they just lived in same building but in a different area and living group (shared kitchen etc). Yet I always was and remained on good terms with all three however, I never had a direct personal issue with any of them. Thank the stars.
Anyway, she very quickly broke up with man number two as well and had something with man number one again, went back.
Result: man two completely lost it; green with envy and jealousy, he ran through the building SCREAMING (he was a very tall guy), waving and brandishing an axe, making various threats, chasing after man one, who was running away, screaming for help in fear, throughout a lot of the building.
Many of us in the building got to hear or even witness that madness. Of course the whole building knew about it within half an hour, all thirty of us.
In the end, it all turned out ""ok""... Not really. Man two was so broken up and confused about it, that he couldn’t stay in the building, even though he had lived there for years and, as far as I knew, had never caused any trouble or acted out before; but after that, he had to be admitted to a mental hospital for a long time.
I don’t know if things ever turned around for him. Months later he was living in a sort of half-way house for people with mental issues, and he came round again specifically and only to do something very strange (and illegal, involved theft) in the building where he had lived for years with us.... He did it to a person (and her in-building business) that he had never had any issues with. Quite the opposite, he always got along with her great and even did some work for her. So I guess, he was still not all there.
Then there is the graffiti guy and street art collective story. Generally, I really like street artists and street art! It is my favourite type of art. Many do it for the love, not for the money or the fame, and their work is free for all to see in public. If the work has some beauty and care, it often can improve the neighborhood. That type of work I am forever looking at, photographing and massively enjoying.
I have gone on a great Berlin graffiti art tour, often stop to take pictures or marvel at some street art with my gf, all over Europe. Owned a few books with that art and watched a nr. of documentaries on the subculture and people behind it.
Low effort ugly tags on the other hand, nope. Dislike them a lot. Reminds me a little too much of a dog pissing anywhere to mark its territory.
I was on friendly terms with a guy who was a painter and street artist, he was part of a pretty famous street art collective. They at times did beautiful colourful work, many paid jobs as well, won some minor awards. They all certainly had the skills to do good work, him included.
Imagine my surprise then, when right after we squatted and moved into a huge old former school building, he took it upon himself to put a massive, ugly and very quick/low effort massive tag all over our building. Right next to our street and eye-level front door. So in a sport where every neighbour could not help but see it, every day.
Never asked or told anyone, huge tag just appeared one day. But it was his collective's tag, so it was pretty obvious he had done it, he confirmed it as soon as we asked as well. Seemed rather proud of it.
We had just finished spending days cleaning up 25+ bag of garbage and the remains of a fire in the building, fixing it up and trying to introduce ourselves to, as well reassuring, our new neighbours.
Now thanks to this guy, their neighbourhood and view and our home (he did not live there or even close and he had not helped) was made actively worse. Right after we moved in,... When I explained all that to him, he didn't get it, didn't think it was a problem,.. was like "So,...?". Didn't want to fix it. Dickhead.
I sprayed over his ugly stuff in a neutral colour and more or less avoided him since. Not like we were close before, just moved in overlapping circles.
I have over 40 somewhat similar experiences and stories like the above, with more than 20 autonomous / conceptual artists. All those experiences with those artists concerned housemates, exes, quite some acquaintances, a few collaborators in the left wing scene and a few casual and fairly close friends, many people I worked with as well as a few people I hired for a job.
Then I have at least two friends that long-term dated artists and have very similar stories, except the dysfunction or monetary exploitation or even straight up abuse, for my few friends, was even more far-reaching in most cases.
I am very aware that artists, of all kinds, are crucial for any society, culture and even entrepreneurship.
Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, I haven’t personally had a single truly positive long-term relationship / experience with those many full-time autonomous/conceptual artists, all of which I genuinely treated as equals and to whom I gave my respect and trust, like I would anyone else that seemed alright initially.
It has little to nothing to do with politics, I have met left-wing or right-wing people in many spheres of life, people that did many varied jobs and I have found those objectionable traits in some, and not others, their politics were usually not a causation for their behavior even if there was some correlation to be found. With these specific type of artists as well, I can of course not be sure how it works, the chicken or the egg of the whole thing. I just know I have had too many rotten experiences and do not care to repeat those.
I have had many wonderful experiences with scads of practical, dependable left-wing people and still do, daily. I live with one, my partner. Majority of my friends are center or a bit more left wing, only a few are very left wing. None of that matters to me, as long as anyone treat others well, are trustworthy and don't have truly misguided or objectionable ideas, including any sort or flavour of deluded partisanship or politics, we get along famously.
The vast majority of self-proclaimed businessmen, or Tech-bros are more conservative or right-wing, there too I pretty consistently found a lot of selfishness, emotional stunting and even sociopathy, quite similar to the kinds I experienced in majority of autonomous / conceptual artists (which on average did skew more left-wing or a-political).
Yet in businessmen or even Tech-bros I have experienced quite a lot of happy exceptions. One of my best really friendly neighbourhood acquaintances/friend of five years now, lives and works very close to where I live. He just just turned sixty. I went to his big surprise birthday party, organized by his wife, quite recently.
He owns a big house, a real estate company and has quite a bit of other property. I have literally no idea what his politics are, it never came up. But he has shown me in every way he is a truly kind, solid, dependable, social, empathic and very fun person, by how he treats me and everyone I have seen him interact with. That is all that matters to me.
It is not at all that I do not want art or even autonomous or conceptual artists in the world! I just seem to feel better when I choose to be around other people.