Harder not easier

Posted on 27/08/2007 by Julian

I had someone say to me recently after viewing some new work ‘… you have forgotten your duty as an artist to make your work accessible…’

Check out this post by one of my favourite photogs .

4 thoughts on “Harder not easier”

Derek on 27/08/2007 at 09:21 said:

You should have asked, “accessible to who?”
Julian on 27/08/2007 at 10:54 said:

hah! Yes, I should have been faster!
Ed Nixon on 27/08/2007 at 12:36 said:

I don’t know. How do you figure out what is accessible and what isn’t? It’s a similar question to: “accessible for whom?”

I’m not aware of anyone, at least anyone in the ‘art’ game, ever making accessibility a consideration. Most of the time and I can vouch for personal experience, you’re just wrestling with your own demons and trying to make it come out… ‘right’ — whatever that might mean.

I suppose you could say that Dickens was being accessible when he serialized his novels and that they just turned out to be artistic classics, but that was a different time and place.

…edN
Julian on 28/08/2007 at 01:17 said:

Well as you can probably guess Ed, to me it is a totally nonsensical statement. AFAIK the role of the artist is to make stuff, which, as you rightly say, takes up most of any sane persons energy. As you also say, it is accessible to me!