"Faking It": From Sacramento, California to the big, sophisticated city of Pullman

The last discussion in the “Faking It” video was very interesting to me. One of the art critics said that the “faker’s” art did not speak to him because there was an explanation concerning the creator’s background accompanying it. I have gathered the impression from our discussions and readings in this course that art does not need any explanation; like the female mentor in the film said, the viewer will project their own meaning, or speculations onto the piece of art before them. I felt like the presenter did not need to add the background story of our “faker’s” experience when he was younger; the painting could speak for itself. I’m not sure how much the man who made that comment deserves to be a part of the “art world” himself if he does not understand or accept that concept.

The episode of the program we saw today was very neat and contrived. The main character was from a working-class type of upbringing, with not much education, and even had a slightly different accent than the art experts, who spent their time in upscale London and had no doubt spent many years educating themselves, both generally and in the world of art. He has been and will continue to be trained by experts; he has even been given a new look, to make the transformation even more real to him. His greatest weakness seems to be his small vocabulary, since he dropped out of school at the age of 16. I am confident that he can be taught some jargon to use while discussing his art, but other aspects of the higher-class culture will be difficult for him. He has been to a few art exhibits, but there are many others that he does not know exist. If he is asked about one of those, he is in trouble, because an up-and-coming artist certainly has done his or her homework about everything that is present in the art world, as well as other artists’ work.

Despite our hero’s disadvantages, I predict that two out of the final three will accept him as an artist. There are a few reasons for this. First, since this is a TV show, the odds are that successes will be shown. Viewers expect happy endings, and if networks fail to deliver, they will stop watching, and the shows of that network will eventually be cancelled. My second reason is that the world of art has become so broad, that it seems that “anything goes.” Anything, except, say, the “middle-class values” that Thomas Kinkade and his fans represent will be acknowledged in this supposedly liberal (all-accepting?) environment. Since so many different techniques and levels of skill and attractiveness are present in “legitimate” art, it will be extremely difficult for the judges to tell who is real and who is not. If I am correct, any average Joe could be taken from their neighborhood and trained to be an “artist.” You might ask; is this a good thing?