The idea of “celebrity” status is attractive for a variety of reasons, the fame and recognition as well as the so-called success of your work, interweaved into the fact that ‘you’ are an ideal as a persona, something to aspire to. It’s a very dizzying idea, and one that many artists see as a benchmark to the idea of “success”. However the definition of “celebrity” is complex. It relates to how individuals see another, in terms of widespread public recognition rather than just their own, be it their work or they as an image. The artist as a celebrity relates to a persona; the public sees the person through their art, and finds the character of the artist as interesting as, if not more than, their art. The “art” world is vastly different to the so-called “real” world, and therefore celebrities differ within their statuses quite significantly. Of course there are certain names that most of the public recognize as artists, which appear to change every decade or so, for example, the figureheads of the 60’s were Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns, the 90’s were Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst and the 00’s had Banksy. These are the types of artists that if the public recognize (mainly via name only) if asked about artists they know. As Millard (2001, pg 7) amusingly shows in “The Tastemakers”, the main two contemporary artists that the public knew were Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst. There is a kind of mystique attributed to the art world, mainly due to how secretive it appears from the public’s point of view. Maybe this is due to the stereotype of the contemporary artist as “crazy” and their work making no sense, as well as the seeming lack of celebrity artists now around in a celebrity obsessed culture. A shift in postmodern culture has made celebrity status highly sought after, and artists have a history of using this status as a way of becoming successful.
As the “King” of artist celebrities, Andy Warhol has become something of an ideal, wherein his aptitude of fusing success in the art world and creating an industry in which celebrities flocked to be a part of. Not only did he include famous faces in his photography and films, but he also strived to become a celebrity in his own right, surrounding himself with a circus of creative personalities to help him with his work, including his “Superstars” who featured in his films and became beautiful accessories to further his fame and career. Known as the “Factory”, his studio became the epitome of 60’s creativity, and his well known mantra “Everyone will be famous for 15 minutes” has become one of the staples of today’s media crazy culture. After her suicide in 1962, Warhol became obsessed with the image of Marilyn Monroe and throughout his career he silk-screened and painted her image. This fascination with celebrity, beauty and the destruction and vulnerability behind many celebrities continued to fuel his creativity. In particular his “Screen Tests” (1964-1966) feature many of the celebrities and his “Superstars”, the most famous being Edie Sedgwick, who’s muse/artist relationship dominated the late 60’s until their infamous separation. The “Screen Tests” revealed in candid detail the idiosyncrasies of the person in front of the camera. Some of them posed, some toyed with the camera, and some of them appeared to fear it. The wide-eyed innocence and fascination of Edie Sedgwick’s screen test juxtaposed Lou Reed’s fidgety refusal to meet the eye of the camera, appearing to treat Warhol’s voyeurism as an authority figure. These 4-minute long “portraits” of Warhol’s many muses and friends are an elegant and almost cruel voyeurism into the depth of those we aspire to be, their vulnerability exploited for our gain, “Our fascination with the beauty and glamour of celebrities seems to have inevitable flip side, which is our deep-seated obsession with tragedy and death”(KJBNDKA). Of course Warhol’s early celebrity portraits (Marilyn Monroe etc) coincided with his other obsessive theme, death. This disturbing link explores the dangerous link that stardom can be destructive. Andy Warhol quickly became a celebrity artist and is now considered one of the most well known artists of the 20th century. He became almost a franchise in how his image as the poster boy of Pop Art influenced popular culture and the way we looked at celebrities.
“If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There's nothing behind it.” – Andy Warhol
He was a personality, a strange pale artist who partied with rock stars, models and actresses, as well as managing to produce a portfolio of work that was considered and incise, using the artists who surrounded him to make his “Factory” a working machine, pouring out his pieces. Who wouldn’t want to be like him? He made the art world extremely glamorous by becoming what he admired.
“What do you really want?”
“Instant recognition”
“From who?”
“The world” (excerpt from Famous for 15 Minutes, Collins Dufresne, 2005)
Ultimately he got his wish and is now the most recognizable artist in the world.[1] Although he himself wasn’t the most charming man, he became an enigmatic character and used this mystery to project a puppet-master quality, using his celebrity acquaintances to further his career and name.
Tracey Emin has also become a household name, her persona as the “bad girl” of the 90’s art world has long given her a place as the Britain’s second most known contemporary artist, after Damien Hirst. Emin found her fame when she “captured the lingo of everyday Estate English, the retorts of a rebellious teenage girl or of lovers having a row with great precision”(1) and her modeling for Vivienne Westwood secured her as the new edgy muse of the decade, many citing her a feminist with her blatant sexualism and rock’n’roll image. Emin’s second seminal piece “My Bed”, which consists of her bed, the way she left it after waking from a heavy sleep and a depressive state causing her to stay in bed for several days. The chaos and embarrassingly familiar objects such as empty alcohol bottles, cigarette butts, stained sheets and underwear thrust the breakdown of a woman who has money, fame and the art world singing her praises into the audience’s view, revealing her imperfections and showing her persona through her art. She reveals her bed as her true self in the midst of a self-destructive state and invites the viewer an intimate look at her vulnerability and creating a piteous bond between them. Emin’s storytelling technique to explain her existence and her way of life has given her a draw that pulls out her tongue-in-cheek but frighteningly honest character that is either loved or hated. What fame gave Emin was a strength that meant despite her unsuccessful input for the 1999 Turner Prize (My Bed), she got more publicity of her work than the actual winner, who’s name faded into the dust behind her. Emin’s work is purely based on her life, or what she knows and has experienced in her life; a method that not many choose to do, or that the public and art world can stomach, “This is an incredible strength in her art - the way she can call up old emotions, feel old pains - but it must be quite a drawback in her life”(2). It is Emin’s strength of character and her charm as the party girl with a deep intelligence that has brought attention. Her work demands attention, whether you like it or not. However the media is extremely fickle and although they can bring you fame and success with praise, they can also turn on you and although you still maintain a sort of fame, you don’t inspire the majority with the luster you once did. Emin managed to somehow hold onto her notoriety, “With other artists, such as Rachel Whiteread, or Damien Hirst, you can hate the work and like the person, or vice versa, but with Tracey no such split is possible. Her art demands a sort of subservience to an Emin-ocentric vision of the world that feels like surrender. That is why, I think, people often resist her art for a long time and then suddenly fall for it”(3), which explains her appeal. Time after time, her critics have argued that her work is rough and unattractive, yet she is still a household name.
Since the media poses such a huge part of the celebrity culture, some artists use the media to their advantage within their work, such as Barbara Kruger, who’s advertising campaigns for Selfridges have made her a name to watch without her compromising her existing work. By using phrases such as “I shop therefore I am” and “buy me I’ll change your life” flashing in red and white as the television campaign, Kruger’s collaboration with the shop is an ironic social commentary using anti-consumerism campaign titles. This irony is post-modern concept that Kruger has drawn upon to “The assumption is that the Selfridges customer is so post-modern and media-savvy that they're all in on the joke. But what is the joke exactly? That shopping is an alienating process. To say, "I shop, therefore I am" is to point out the emptiness at the core of the capitalist lifestyle. The joke is on us. Selfridges is laughing at its customers. Only we can't help but laugh along, for fear of appearing unsophisticated; unmetropolitan. How very clever of them.”(1) Obviously Kruger’s work with Selfridges promotes her own artwork and her use of the shop lends her a broader and young audience. The negative result being that many critics dub her as a “sell out”, although nobody can fault her business-like way of maintaining a name for herself. And perhaps the new way forward for contemporary artists is to bridge the void between the media and the art world, in a bid to draw in the public and to gain recognition. By using the media and becoming a recognizable name from the art world, artists once again can be idolized.
Banksy has become a household name, synonymous with the post-modern cynicism felt in Britain today. He has also become the ‘typical’ contemporary art in today’s youth culture, with a vast army of families of art students recognizing the name in the mad rush for presents at Christmas. But this is for a reason. Banksy’s work explores the childish play between graffiti and the law, his pieces popping up on empty walls, roads, in fact anything he wants. Although none of his pieces are exclusively seminal to his notoriety, one that stands out for me is the piece he did on the segregation wall in Palestine. Using his usual ‘spray can’ graffiti to frame a beautifully (and kitsch) detailed painting of a landscape with a cartoon window and lounge scene, Banksy explores the nature of the walls that the Israeli armies constructed from 2002 to change Palestine into “the world’s largest open-air prison and ultimate activity holiday for graffiti artists” (Banksy, 2006, pg 136). This comment on one of the more controversial subjects that he deals with is a subtle approach compared to his usual feats. Yet it is the subtlety that makes it an important piece. By creating a work that appears to render the wall useless and still mocks it’s intent is a brave thing to do and inspires a discussion into religious politics that a canvas painting would not. It ceases to be just a statement and instead becomes an argument that the audience is drawn into as Banksy scrawls his clever graffiti on a wall manned by armed guards and security towers. This sense of danger makes the character of Banksy likeable and a hero artist. The most interesting thing about Banksy is that this persona is anonymous; it is based on an illusion of the artist rather than a real person. This anonymity has made Banksy more than just a graffiti artist, he has become the prankster of urban Britain, using his amusing graffiti cartoons to comment on politics and social absurdities, as well as past events. Although we may never know who Banksy really is, his name will be remembered.
Of course the obvious drawback of the celebrity lifestyle is that your name and persona is remembered more than you work, unless your work is successful enough to inspire a social population. Yet the best-known celebrity artists have managed this feat, to inspire the public with their work and capture them with their character. It is clear that for success in this field you need to have both. An artist is no longer just an artist in terms of celebrity; they are an icon of their field by promoting their face, name and image in a unique way, and using their artwork as memoirs almost, so that they will forever be remembered.
Celebrity obsessed media can either work for or against an artist, without promotion they will not gain recognition in the public forum, no matter how well they are received in the art world. The celebrity culture has many false icons; people who use the media to become famous for an image rather than producing any intelligent work, such as glamour model and “headline queen” Katie Price. Yet it is the public who ultimately decide the celebrity idols, “You can switch on the TV when you want to be nice to the celebrity and switch it off when you're sick of them. So once the public has a power over these successful celebrities and I think they're like little things -- or big things in England.”(2) But one point remains clear; the culture today is celebrity based, and as artists we can either use it to our advantage or make a point to stand against it, but we cannot ignore it.
2 http://voices.washingtonpost.com/celebritology/2007/11/doubletake_celebrity_clones_as.html
1 http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/arts/review-23700768-tracey-emins-really-done-it-this-time.do
2 http://www.3ammagazine.com/litarchives/oct2001/going_down.html
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