Nowadays, art is generally seen as an economic issue. Concerning the visual arts, the market has in practice absorbed all the other values that the pieces could have intrinsically. A painting is appreciated by its price, and that’s it the one who marks your valuewhatever the specialists say who, for the most part, also participate in this game instituted by this new system of power which is shaking up the contemporary world.
This reality is of particular importance in the new creative discipline of the 20th century, fashion, with the revolutionary and profitable creation of the designer/star, compared to the couturier/artisan of previous times. Once the first great famous designers have died, the new entrepreneurs of the sector They were able to revitalize their businesses in a wild way, with new, younger and more daring creators who would rejuvenate them. This is what Galliano did with Dior, Lagerfeld with Chanel or Ford with Saint Laurent.
What is Chanel in a Chanel garment designed by Lagerfeld? Is it his merit or his? If this were considered art, which of the two should be praised? The new gospel has dictated the norms and No one questioned whether this umbrella was legal. in the name of a deceased person to protect and ensure the sale of products that he had not designed or even approved. If we applied this question to painting, it would be as if there were workshops bearing the name of Picasso or Rembrandt and the paintings that came out of them had the same price as an original from the hand of these painters.
In sculpture, the closest thing I can think of is buying a plaster cast of a Bernini sculpture, paying for it, and feeling like you have a true treasure from the hands of this Italian Baroque genius. No one stops to think about this logic, because we associate the brand too much with the dream it sells or what it represented at the time. It is as if we had been brainwashed to benefit the economy from these new barons who appeared at the end of the last century in other sectors of activity, attracted by the opportunities that this new business created.
Continuing on this question of the artistic attribution of clothing, the future Queen of England dressed as Alexander Mcqueen for their wedding in 2011, but it turns out he had already committed suicide. Is it legal to attribute this wedding dress to this creative genius? For me, no; although the one who designed it was his assistant and disciple. But that’s how the system is set up and it doesn’t seem to be changing at the moment. This reality undermines the possibility of making designers artists with absolute status, because their signatures outlive them, which is a strange and cynical way of saying that they are perfectly expendable.
So if the brand without them continues to rise, that’s the important thing, not the brain that creates the products. If so, it could look like any type of mass production, like cars or, indeed, like bags. Is it possible to talk about art in these cases? Clearly no. If we exalt designers like John Galliano and Alexander Mcqueen to the rank of artists, and the first designs for the house of Dior and the second for Givenchy, were they the artists or the dead? EITHER fifty/fifty?
