Art vs. Design or What's Wrong With This Picture
Fitzpatrick-An advertisement offering reproductions of artwork scaled and colored to fit your décor, caught my eye the other day. There is something very wrong with this scenario.
I attended the interior design program at California State University Fresno when it was part of the industrial technology department (it’s now a rightful member of the School of Art and Design), so I missed the usual art school interdisciplinary drama over whether art should be co-opted for commercial purposes. The great Fine Artists (painters, sculptors) vs. Commercial Artists (interior designers, graphic designers) battle did not play out as in most art schools, as we were the artsy ones next to the I.T. geeks.
So I’m not sure where I got the idea that design is here to support art, but it might have been from my first employer, Michael Weil of Michael Weil Design www.michaelweildesign.com. Michael’s first career was in theater production and he spent the wild and wooly 70s and 80s between New York and Rome involved in some of the most cutting edge work of the day. Where other designers I later worked for might develop a “theme” or “concept” for a client based on a color they wanted to work with or an inspiring fabric, Michael’s first move was to inquire if the client collected any art, and if they didn’t, if there was some other passion that they held in life. This is where he would begin. For Michael, life is about passion and for him, visual passion culminates in art or objects with such intense symbolism for the client that they should be the visual center of the home.
If the architecture of a home is genuine and it houses art that inspires and impassions the inhabitants, there is very little need for decoration.
The advertisement offers “art the way you want it.” This is backwards. Art exists to do what it wants with us.
I attended the interior design program at California State University Fresno when it was part of the industrial technology department (it’s now a rightful member of the School of Art and Design), so I missed the usual art school interdisciplinary drama over whether art should be co-opted for commercial purposes. The great Fine Artists (painters, sculptors) vs. Commercial Artists (interior designers, graphic designers) battle did not play out as in most art schools, as we were the artsy ones next to the I.T. geeks.
So I’m not sure where I got the idea that design is here to support art, but it might have been from my first employer, Michael Weil of Michael Weil Design www.michaelweildesign.com. Michael’s first career was in theater production and he spent the wild and wooly 70s and 80s between New York and Rome involved in some of the most cutting edge work of the day. Where other designers I later worked for might develop a “theme” or “concept” for a client based on a color they wanted to work with or an inspiring fabric, Michael’s first move was to inquire if the client collected any art, and if they didn’t, if there was some other passion that they held in life. This is where he would begin. For Michael, life is about passion and for him, visual passion culminates in art or objects with such intense symbolism for the client that they should be the visual center of the home.
If the architecture of a home is genuine and it houses art that inspires and impassions the inhabitants, there is very little need for decoration.
The advertisement offers “art the way you want it.” This is backwards. Art exists to do what it wants with us.
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