I recently read that Salvador Dali hated cinema as a medium, but used it because he could reach a public that would never set foot in a gallery to see his paintings. Especially in this age, less than a century after Dali started his cinematic endeavours, cinema has become the medium in which to reach the large public. It has also become the artform with the biggest salary, so to speak. This brings up a question that has started to become more and more important since Warhol invented "Popular art". Can art created to please masses still be art? Progressive artists should never be asked to compromise their often unpopular views in order to be able to produce their work. Of course they have been for centuries, but the compromises of today are getting harsher, it feels. Sometimes I feel that the only way to justify the things I make (and the things you see in my gallery) by saying that I like doing them. That they are for nobody but myself and that I do not aim to make a living by it. Which is quite far from the truth.
On the other side of the spectrum are the people who make things aimed at pleasing as many people as possible. It is not their goal to create something new, but quite the opposite: they know the public wants something to identify itself with, something nice and familiar. These people can be creative in the literal meaning of the word, but they lack the artistic mindset to make something more than beautiful or even truly original. My problem with all this is that it’s these people who seem to reap the most recognition and have the largest share in the attention of the public.
I think there are two ways to go at this, two different compromises. If we compromise our products and make what the public wants to see, our art will no longer be our own. Or we can compromise the uniqueness and availability of our work. Think about Keith Herring, for example, whose work has been reduced to assembly line products. Or indeed Dali. Whose work, despite his huge popularity and the reproductions on posters, t-shirts, clocks etc has lost none of its strength.

Dalí & Film - A Groundbreaking Show At Tate Modern
Did Dali really love cinema? (Dutch)








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