I had an invitation to watch the Vivienne Westwood SS15 Show in London this morning. Vivienne Westwood is great. Her autobiography is well worth the read too. It made me think about comparative ‘creativity.’ What do I mean?
Compare Viv Westwood to the ‘film director’ that came into film directing via advertising. Products; product driven. Go see his latest film. Does it seem born out of art or commercial art? Or the ‘photographer’ that came out of fashion and is now trying to be an an ‘arts’ photographer. I’ve never seen that crossover done successfully. That crossover. People brought up in the commercial arts haven’t a clue about fine arts. They only know how to give you a pretty, slick or surface-y image. There’s no substance because there’s not SUPPOSED to be; they’re not trained to be fine artists but commercial artists. Example: — you could have a Picasso and never tire of looking at it. Whereas, a Richard Avedon photo would become boring after a very short while. There’s not enough skill in producing the Avedon photo as there is in what Picasso did. Picasso broke ground. His process was real. The Avedon is shallow and one dimensional and says everything that it’s capable of saying very quickly. There are no surprises; no intrigue with the Avedon. It, simply, is what it is… The Picasso is the wellspring of real art; because Picasso’s process was exploratory — it is imminently more interesting to look at that pat and IMAGINE. Fine Art can’t be duplicated; it’s NOT a product. It’s a one off deal. These ‘film directors’ and ‘photographers’ are the same people that Charlie Kaufman said:’brought you ©Pop-tarts and ©iPhones.’