the issue of authorship: art vs music

It is true that one of the things that seems to privilege visual art over other forms of expression is the issue of authorship. Although still an extremely conservative view to have, most art audiences cling to the academic idea of the author. The idea that the piece of art is some how a better experience if we know that the artist touched the work creating a physical record of the presence of the artist. Although many artists and curators assume the general public and larger audience for art are aware of the years of chipping away at this notion, the idea of the “hand of the artist” is still pervasive in contemporary museum and gallery culture. We need only look at the continued use of the term “masterpiece”. Masterpiece is almost an entirely invented idea as most working artists past and present don’t stop working until their dead. Therefore the idea of the masterpiece can be pulled back out of a career that is over, barring the return of a zombie giacometti. The logic to me would be that if the artist believed they had made a masterpiece wouldn’t they stop and move on to something else? However in music one is perfectly able to accept a quality cover band playing the musical masterpieces of artists both living and dead. In fact take a quick glance at any local music venue in your area with a capacity of 1000 or under and at least a couple nights a month feature cover bands(yes there are no universals but in general this is true). Unlike the visual art world where a cover artist or a simple copy artist would never see their work in the same venue where original art is hung(accept maybe in an ironic curatorial gesture or if you are making miniature versions of said works), it is perfectly acceptable for a cover band to appear in the same venue where more legitimately authored works will appear. Since authorship has not dogged the music world as severely as the art world, we almost don’t care who wrote or created a piece of music a cover or standard reworking of a tune can still recirculate with the same enthusiasm, witness the glee soundtrack. This is one of the nice things about academic music history being sort of impotent, the audience still mostly judges the music on it’s own merits. In the art world however Academics still rules the roost, many strategies to put the focus on the work have arisen over the years. One of which is to work anonymously in a collective. The results of these efforts tends to be so-so at best with most collectives only being as good as their best members and eventually moving in separate individual directions that are more interesting. Like supergroups of musicians who make an amazing run but then ultimately take on various solo careers with the clear talents moving on to make their own work. The other solution, the one that got me thinking along this line is for the individual to somehow remain doggedly anonymous. With the current fascination with the once maligned “street art” many formerly faceless art projects now have proud authors, unconcerned with whether their presence taints the work or not. I recently saw a preview for the Banksy movie “Exit through the gift shop” here online. I for one am excited, I really don’t care who makes the work for the Banksy brand, I just like the work, and for that reason I will definitely be seeing the movie, and not to find out the “author’s true identity”.