CON • TEXT - Arkitektur- og designhøgskolen i Oslo - AHO

D E N K U L T U R E L L E S K U L E S E K K E Ncommissioned art and free art, the postmodern artist challenges the views ofart — denying economy, and often establishing a business where assistantscan do some of the work. The postmodern artist, however, cannot existwithout boundaries and tends to be a paradox. To survive, this artist type willeither become an established businessperson within a professional field, oraccept the re-establishment of borders. According to Abbing, the postmodernartist is not a force to count on in the long run (Abbing 2002).The artist-craftsman lost some standing during the era of conceptual art, butis now reclaiming his place. The refocusing on techniques — both old andnew — and the introduction of traditional expressions in paintings andsculptures through craftsmanship means they are again recognised asaccepted forms of art. However, the artist-craftsman is not after stardom, andmodestly asks no more than the piece is worth in materials and time. Thismakes the artist-craftsman type, in Abbing’s view, a limited influence in the‘art world’ (Abbing 2002).The artist-entertainer on the other hand, seems to pick up where the‘charismatic artist’ left off. It is all about pleasing the audience, and as aconsequence of this, pleasing the market. The market responds to theorientation towards re-establishing the notion of art as something ‘more’. Theartist-entertainer tends to deny economy, and does not want a secularisationof art, as profit is linked to the conception of the ‘magic’ or the sacred in art.The artist-entertainer might be seen as a ‘cynical-romantic artist attitude’, asthe keeping of the romantic through maintaining the dominant paradigm ofthe ‘charismatic’ is the agenda for the portrayed ideology. Abbing claims thatthis artist type will be the most influential, as donors — both the free marketand the government will respond to it — and, as such, fund the attitude(Abbing 2002).Solhjell (2006) claims that the postmodern artist type that was orientedtowards boundary breaking and existing outside the establishment wasinfluential in Norway in the mid 90s but soon disappeared from the arena.The artists, galleries and forums that were active were soon swallowed backinto the existing regime. Mangset discusses the four artist attitudes in relationto the emerging identities of young artists in Norway (Mangset 2004). Maybenot surprisingly, there is still a strong orientation towards believing in themodernist role of the ‘charismatic artist’, even as some of the other traits aredisplayed. The Visual art education institutions, and the art institutions atlarge, exhibit ‘charismatic characteristics’ that still allow for a mystificationof the magic and sacred of art (Aslaksen 1997). Even as the postmodernartist-entertainer can be seen in some instances, it seems to me that they tendto blend into modernist notions (Schaanning 2000). Even as the strategy is60