![]() Popular art is, by and large, emblematic of a contemporary need for immediate gratification part of what makes it so addictive is its ability to indulge and satiate that need.įine art, by contrast, tends to be presented in contexts less driven by contemporary, mainstream culture. They are readily available and readily absorbed. Popular music is no more than a click away on iTunes and popular TV shows require only the pushing of buttons on our remote. What is meant by the word “popular” and what is consequently assumed of works designated in this way? For one, popular art is commodified and consumed with rapidity by the masses. Even in an era of insipid beats and prosaic plotlines can we find art that measures up, in every criterion, to the works revered by scholarly critics.Įssential to any discussion of the popular arts in relation the fine arts is to establish a recognizable line of demarcation between the two. It is needlessly aristocratic to ignore pop culture because of its wide scale appeal and supposed lack of sophistication. 1 It is convenient for critics to ignore works that attract such a mass following, but the very fact of that allure necessitates a discussion, not only of the psyche of the conventional consumer but also of the aesthetic conditions of products of popular culture. This sort of wholesale denunciation of the popular arts is problematic for a multitude of reasons.įirst, as Richard Shusterman explains in “In Defense of Popular Arts,” the works and genres that we’ve designated as “mainstream” give us too much satisfaction to merit exclusion from theoretical consideration. In turn, the hegemonic exclusivity of “fine” or “high” art reigns supreme, for only these practices are afforded legitimate aesthetic, sociological, and theoretical attention. Societal gravitation towards and obsession with popular culture has worked counter effectively, giving art critics an excuse to denigrate it as below them both intellectually and aesthetically. ![]() Despite their ubiquity, the songs exhausted on top 40 radio and the films advertised endlessly on TV have not gained esteem from scholars of art and aesthetics. Never has it been more impossible than it is today to ignore what we’ve come to regard as “pop culture.” 21st-century modes of dissemination have facilitated the reach of the “popular arts” to the effect that they are virtually inescapable. ![]() The Aesthetics of Popular Culture and the Social Dynamics of Fame Still from Lady Gaga’s music video “Paparazzi” (2009)
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