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Like Art

Internet Fame Becomes an Art Practice

The host of the Like Art video series examines how social media is reshaping the creation, distribution, and reception of art today.

Like Art is a video series on Creators that explores the artists who have made a name for themselves through social media platforms.

It's impossible to deny the ways in which social media challenges the art establishment. As an Instagram star and conceptual artist, Alexandra Marzella gained notoriety for her political performances and explicit selfies. A video Marzella made of herself on the toilet titled "Booji poopi" garnered more than a 160,000 views on Instagram. The comments section hosted a hot debate about the nature of art, stimulated by Marzella's provocative posts. Says Marzella, "I really don't think my selfies are any different from Rembrandt's self-portraiture."

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Every generation of artists longs for direct connection to their audience: to side-step the frigidity of the museum wall, the strong-hold of the gallery, and the furtive secrecy of the private collector. In 1961, American sculptor Claes Oldenburg wrote that he was all for an art "that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum." The Stuckist Manifesto of 1999 declared that "art that has to be in a gallery to be art isn't art." Today's artists, who use Instagram to show their artwork to thousands of new people every single day, may well have realized these dreams.

In Los Angeles, digital artist and rapper Yung Jake creates emoji portraits that depict the likes of Kanye West, Gigi Hadid, and Donald Trump. He is clear that "the most popular ones are usually the most popular people." That matters because likes are a form of currency for Jake, and their accumulation defines him as an artist. He says, "If you're an artist that isn't into fame, you're not really an artist. Art becomes art when you show it to people."

Marzella's "Booji Poopi" video and Jake's emoji portraits demonstrate how Instagram is shaping the creation and reception of art today. Jake, Marzella, and their cohorts co-create with their audience, and their art process is constantly in-process. It is offered to the world without mediation by gallerists or critics. In form and content, it rejects high/low distinctions. It sells itself. And the artists who create it shake the contemporary art world like punk did progressive rock.

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Jake and others are also reconnoitering an economic pathway for artists that doesn't depend on selling art objects through a third party. There is no obligation for this new art to disappear into private homes and underground storage facilities in order to be financially viable. Though Jake also makes sculptures and sells them through a gallery, the bulk of his creative output is free for the world to see on Instagram and Snapchat.

Monetization then comes from partnerships with brands like Pepsi, Red Bull, and Lenovo, who are attracted by Jake's followers and cultural capital. Jake is somewhat self-conscious about this. Describing a recent video, he says, "I amped up the product placement, even though I had no association with the product…but it doesn't make it not product placement just because it's funny."

Reliance on brand partners isn't the only potential pitfall of social media art. Marzella's Instagram account has been suspended at least 15 times for failing to adhere to "community guidelines," as corporate logic and artistic ideals have come into conflict. Meanwhile, Daniel Arnold, one of Instagram's foremost photographers, is wary of being typecast. "If I could live without [being known for my Instagram], I would love to. It's crowding out the more interesting part of the story," he says.

Yet, the new paradigm is irresistible and instantaneous. Andy Robertson, a.k.a. Onderdonx, is a former art handler who is now a curator of minimalist art, as well as a video sculptor and chair designer. He posts pictures of paintings by Frank Stella and sculptures by John Chamberlain alongside images of not-so-famous art, bringing minimalism to a wider audience. He says, "I don't have to ask anyone. I don't have to send a press release to a gallery or a museum. And people can absorb it how they like." He juxtaposes the canonical and non-canonical. His visual connections are incontrovertible and sometimes inconvenient to the art world, as they question why the few command astronomical prices, while many artists are forgotten.

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Daniel Arnold understands that the juxtapositions on Instagram can be as arresting as the images themselves. Out shooting in New York, he captures a moment on the subway: a black child's hand reaches across the car for a white woman's open hand. It's the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel meets #BlackLivesMatter. The picture sits between an image of a tattooed hand, reaching down into a pair of trousers, and a portrait of a man looking skyward. His t-shirt is emblazoned with a giant Rolex. "If you compose it right, it's like a flirty conversation," says Arnold.

As well as being flirty, the conversation between these artists and their audience takes place in real time. Digital artist Meriem Bennani is best known for using After Effects to create absurdist, animated hijabs. But on the day of Trump's inauguration, she turned her editing attention to the new president's inaugural band, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. She created and shared a video with close-up jump cuts traveling from white face to white face, and the noise of primal screams in place of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." Arnold saw Bennani's video and used a third-party app to repost it on his own feed. The instant audience, the ability to make an immediate political intervention, and the virality of this work would have been unimaginable to artists in the past.

These artists connect directly with their audience and their art is shaped by that connection. The number of likes a post receives inevitably influences future production, while conversations in the comments section can spark new artistic avenues. Appropriating the economics of celebrity culture, these artists are pioneering a completely new way of making art and of selling it. They take performance art, and conceptual art, and instant fame, and meld it all into a new way of connecting with a wider public, making art that is more accessible to more people. And making art in the moment, that is not perfect and is ever changing. This is a refreshing opportunity, as well as a challenge, for the art world. As Jake puts it, "It's nice when people see things that are recognizable, and then see how someone can fuck with that thing."

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Watch all the episodes of Like Art on Creators.

Related:

How to Look at Art Like Jerry Saltz

Photographer Daniel Arnold Is Like Diane Arbus for the Instagram Generation

Feminist Artist Alexandra Marzella Doesn't Give a F*ck About Her Haters