Jan 16, 2020, 12:51 AM

@GreenFlashlight said in Separating Art From Artist:

my original point was only that I think it's dishonest to try to divorce art from the person who created it; and I think attempting to do so is usually an admission of the problem they're trying to avoid, because if they didn't think it was a big deal, they wouldn't be deflecting.

Here's the thing. I think you're looking at this wrong.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/nov/21/from-a-racist-square-to-rotting-beef-five-lesser-known-stories-about-modern-art

(CONTAINS PAINTED NAKED BITS.)

^ That is a good read on this subject.

All of the things described there are objectively bad fucking news in a wide variety of ways today, and some were problematic then, too.

Do I think "the artist’s misogyny, particularly his affair with 17-year-old Marie-Thérèse Walter, who became pregnant with his child in 1935" is more important to society and culture than Picasso's artwork? Without hesitation I say no, and again, I don't like his work at all, and have no qualms calling him a spectacular ass.

This is not deflection, or 'accepting that everything he creates is a self-portrait of his shittiest attitudes' and some of the other ways you've characterized it.

(Apologies if I'm slow on anything someone expects a reply about, I keep getting powerfloufed today by the snow weasel.)