Making sense of art and design industries

by osloarts

April 2nd 2018 the people of Bergen woke up to something incredible and shocking. An anonymous street artist who’s known under the name AFK, has painted a picture of Norway’s former Minister of Justice, Sylvi Listhaug, as Jesus Christ hanging on the cross on a building in Norway’s second biggest city Bergen.

Background

The painting was a result of the minister’s rhetorical comments on how she is sacrificing herself to maintain her party (FRP), and how her free speech is strangled in front of the Norwegian press, when the reality was that she was stopped from speaking out her extremist meanings, conspiracy theories and hateful thoughts against a number of the Parliament members. This is how the artist explained the painting to the Norwegian newspaper VG (read the original article here).

This painting, which was named “Making a Martyr”, received a lot of attention. Both good and bad. Some saw it as provoking, others looked at it as a masterpiece. You can see for yourself and judge. The painting was eventually covered in spray paint, and later taken down by students who wanted to preserve it. It was later sold for as much as 500.000 Norwegian kroner.

Professional look

Let’s take a moment to look at this thru our “art glasses”. To really get in depth of characterizing the artwork, we have to look at the different categories and theories of art and design. To do this we can use the industrial networks approach and the sociological approach.

The industrial networks approach consists of classical contemporary art, avant-garde art market, alternative art market and junk art market. This theory describes the art market as a market that consists of a network of actors who are related to each other by exchange relationships. These networks are created thru individuals and the constrained choices they make.

The sociological approach consists of traditional art, avant-garde recognized and unrecognized, exclusive circuit, inclusive circuit and commercial circuit. 

So where does “Making a Martyr” fit in? The artist himself is more of an avant-garde unrecognized, due to him being a street artist more than an actual artist. This painting on the other hand, got so much attention that is doesn’t really fit into this category anymore. Let’s focus on the painting itself. It was painted by an anonymous street artist, and got a lot of attention and got sold for half a million NOK.

I would describe this as Alternative art, which is similar to the avant-garde art market (aligned with non-profit sector, exchange may be monetary or cultural and artwork is recognized by a small number of influential curators etc…), but at a lower, national level. The artwork was discussed by media, critics and other leading figures in the art system as well, so this is a fitting category.

What do you think?