Souvenirs, Anyone?

Almost anyone with an interest in art will agree there is a clear difference between those recognised by their handling of various media, their concerns, or the images they deploy to create a channel of communication for ideas, and those who believe they have struck gold with 8216;8216;best-selling8217;8217; images. For a new best-seller, for example, one of this latter group needs only to add a squirrel to an otherwise endlessly recycled set of images. This is then the clicheacute;8218; that sells. Boring? You bet. Failure? Hmm. Let8217;s re-visit that.

Art historian Christopher Steiner, in his essay 8216;Authenticity, Repetition and Aesthetics,8217; suggests tourists buy tourist art which also includes souvenirs not because they are unusual or different from the pre-conceived, but because they are replicas of what is already known. This familiarity drives home the point of their being 8216;authentic8217;. If souvenir shops were variety-laden, the authenticity of everything there would appear to be at stake. Steiner says, 8216;8216;Their redundancy of tourist art makes available to non-indigenous patrons the stereotypical forms they have come to expect from classifications8212;what tourists are looking for, then, in their collecting practices are the forms they already know.8217;8217;

A valid parallel is available here for some of our own artists and their buyers. This is particularly true of many somewhat better known names, who carefully begin to brand themselves as the authentic producers of certain kinds of compositions, images and works. When buyers or sellers claim about a work that it8217;s a so-and-so, it has come to mean that it must be instantly recognised as such by virtue of its aesthetics. This shift from an energised body of work to making oneself into a brand stultifies artistic exploration in a blink.

Branding is encouraged more today than ever before because of the emergence of those who buy names. This finds a strong parallel in the Page 3 syndrome, where whose designs you are seen wearing and whom you speak to begins to define you. Now, the art you appreciate and hang on your walls also defines you.

With larger disposable incomes, you come under greater pressure to 8216;display your cultural capital,8217; including art. And if you know only a little bit, then ready-to-consume work in easy-to-identify square inches are the most comforting to engage with, as well as the hardest to challenge. As a result, the clicheacute;-brigade has two complementary arms: the producer and buyer. Of course, it8217;s much more sophisticated than simply demand and supply. The media needs artists as New Age heroes, and galleries need to sell to survive.

But it8217;s clear that many studio artists today are borrowing much more than imagery from their souvenir-producing counterparts. They are imbibing their fundamental marketing mantras. Unfortunately, this stymies the spirit of enquiry and the generation of ideas. And it isn8217;t good news for contemporary art making.