The interdisciplinary artist

There was a time when the traditional artist was either a painter or a sculptor, with some exceptions of course, such as the case of Michelangelo Buonarroti. Each established artist had his own ‘bottega’, where together with his assistants, he carried out his commissioned works. The art crisis brought about by the Counter-Reformation, which developed during the post-Renaissance period, obliged artists to find new patrons apart from the generous noble representatives of the Catholic Church. It was then when the attention shifted towards a new and prosperous market - that offered by the increasingly wealthy bourgeois class. This brought about the idea of specialisation in the various genres, including still-life paintings and the illustration of mundane scenes. Later on, during the Industrial Revolution, the art materials and paints became more accessible on the market, hence facilitating the individual productivity of the artists.

It was however the invention of photography in the 1880s which brought about a significant and dramatic change in the art domain. The capacity of photography to achieve the lifelike realism sought by painters was a key factor in shifting the interest from figurative art towards abstraction. And with photography challenging the realism achievable in fine art, artists struck back with the photographic style of the Surrealists, particularly Salvador Dali. Later, Andy Warhol would use colour photography as the basis of his silkscreen work. The ever-increasing relevance of the technological factor in everyday life was also decisive in the affirmation of computer- and video-generated artworks. Artists started to explore the relationship between images, language, actions and sounds, and stage bodies in their videos.

Another important breakthrough was the advent of the ‘ready-made’, the term coined in 1915 to describe objects appropriated by the artist acquiring the status of artworks. With his appropriation of everyday objects as ‘ready-mades’, Marcel Duchamp was revolutionary in introducing the notion of choice as an artistic gesture in itself, pre-dating conceptual art by half a century. Later, conceptual artists like Sol Lewitt would leave their designs and projects vague so that the team of assistants who carried a work out –sometimes taking weeks – were allowed to participate in the creative process.

In brief I tried to explain how throughout the twentieth century, the art domain changed drastically in terms of development of ideas and practices. Nowadays, we are exposed to an open battlefield or arena in which what we may consider breathtakingly beautiful could be tested by what we may define as simply bizarre. Artists were and still remain capable of exciting, but they are also equipped with the tools to challenge and sometimes, offend. So does it really matter whether an artist is either a painter or a sculptor? Not really. The contemporary artist is the one who scrutinises and digests whatever develops around him and presents his perceptions and beliefs with his own visual language/s. The technique and the medium used are important in the realisation of any work of art, but these shall always remain subordinate to the idea or the concept behind the whole process. Then come of course other factors into play such as the emotions imparted and the overall structure of the work concerned. The contemporary artist can work on his own or otherwise may opt to work in collaboration with other colleagues. Some even delegate the actual implementation of their project/s or ideas to craftsmen or assistants. An artist is either an idealist or a pragmatist. He either aspires for a utopian state of being, or else questions the various existential, political and social ideologies. The artist, whether he likes it or not, lives in a continual correlation to the public, to society, and he cannot withdraw from its laws and its reforms. Anyone maintaining a sophisticated stance above or outside of things is also taking sides, for such indifference and aloofness is automatically a support of the class currently in power. Moreover, a great number of artists quite consciously support the bourgeois system, since it is within that system that their work sells.

And finally, the contemporary artist is required to be multi-lingual. Though his work revolves around the same common denominator - his beliefs and personal research - the media and languages he exercises to express himself or make a statement need to be multiple. He may not necessarily be a painter or a sculptor, considering that the painter/ illustrator uses exclusively paint to express himself whereas the sculptor is concerned with bringing forms to life exclusively in 3D. In my opinion interdisciplinarity is the operative word that defines the contemporary visual artist. The application of new media has the function of stimulating interest and increasing motivation on the part of the artist in his quest of new forms of expression. The creative person considers art as a never-ending journey of self-discovery that needs to be pursued even if it takes him down to less familiar paths. Paradoxically, he shall persist with his endeavours despite the fact that no ultimate truth shall ever be unlocked.