Who counts as part of the art world?

Who counts as part of the art world?

I have this perhaps foolish and idealistic notion that in making art, I’m offering it to everyone. I think there are barriers to access, but perhaps fewer in the Yukon than in other places. Of course there’s the remoteness of the Yukon, and so I show outside the Yukon as well.

Obviously, not everyone will respond to it. But I strive to find points of common ground, to make art that everyone can reach. That you don’t need a degree in cultural theory to decode.

I find that while lip service is paid to this notion in contemporary art circles, it’s not in practice a really current idea. Increasingly, an MFA is the qualifying degree for an art career, and working as a teacher at a university is considered a credit rather than a day job. The resulting artwork is created for an audience within this necessarily urban, institution-dependent circle.

I’d love to have my work exhibited in the National Gallery. But I’d rather lots of people saw it than the right people, I think. And since many curators looking at it wouldn’t see it as contemporary, perhaps it won’t get there.

I challenge myself on this. I wonder if I’m provinicializing myself, living in the Yukon. Am I failing to challenge myself enough intellectually by failing to take part in an MFA program? The most common argument for an MFA program I hear, is that it’s time to really focus on your art.

But I do that, and I find I can have that time for much less money than an MFA program.  What is the post secondary art industry up to? Who benefits? What is being sold to whom? Is an MFA a way of buying artist status? Does one simply imbibe trendy ideas there that, like the waves in which Caravaggio was embraced, and then eschewed, and then embraced again, are fleeting and of little value? If I took part in such a program, would I just start making art that only that privileged circle would “get”? Is it the new Academy? Or does it impart some kind of rigour and discipline that really are necessary as a precursor to an art career?

As usual, more questions than answers. But I think that can be good. Again, if anyone’s reading this, your responses are welcome.

All the best, Nicole.