The Art vs Artist debate

For the longest time, the art vs artist debate would leave me speechless. I still remember the first time I heard of this ‘debate’ and pondered for the first time on, if I had to, what I would choose. I was never able to pick a side. I’d been told that it was ‘ok’ to sometimes not have answers or be indecisive of some things, so I stayed NOTA for all future art vs artist conversations. But in my own company, it would bother me, would I be able to compartmentalise the art from its artist? Would I still enjoy good art if its artist was an asshole? Or would I write off the art in its entirety because the artist’s morals did not match with mine?

Recently, in light of all the online hate we’ve been spewing on each other, a lot of information on ‘cancel culture’ started doing the rounds. That made a lot of sense to me. Suddenly there was a term for what I would otherwise call ‘being kind’ during my sane days and on other days, while feeling like something was wrong, swayed with popular opinions and supported cancelling people because they made one mistake or quoted one thing wrong or supported one bad thing.

To now, a minute back, i was reading Shashi Tharoor’s article on how history is erased all the time and writing of new history has always been in fashion, as it is, quite rampant, these days as well, after all, all it takes is an airbrushed reel or an edited textbook.

And then suddenly, two negatives cancelled each other to give me a (sort of) positive. The act of erasing parts of history that do not suit us along with the act of cancelling people who make the slightest mistake, together, in a very twisted way, eased the art vs artist dilemma in my mind.

Maybe, just maybe, we do not cancel the asshole artist’s entire life, it’s work, it’s touch points. Maybe we accept parts, in this case, the good parts. Maybe we do not need to dive into the lives of everyone, maybe we just let the art do its thang, we let the art entertain us, elate us, heal us, benefit us. Maybe the art can be viewed/consumed by itself, maybe the scent of the artist does not linger on the art itself. I do know that it is not always possible to un-marry the artist from its art. But, in the sea of cancelling people who make mistakes, rulers we didn’t approve of, party workers who didn’t comply, kings who didn’t win wars I guess this cancelling would stand out at least in one thing, it would not spread hate.