Within art, the audience must always be considered. What am I willing to reveal so that the onlookers grasp the concept and emotions held within my work. Because without the audience, frankly, there is no art. In 1872, a French novelist, Geroge Sand stated that an artist’s ‘duty to find an adequate expression to convey it to as many souls as possible.’ (Goins, n.d.) further perpetuating the idea that the most important attribute an art piece should have is appeal to the intended audience.
Mona Hatoum is a multimedia artist who, in between 1985-95 created a series of artworks entitled Roadworks. One piece was a performance piece in which she would walk around the streets of Brixton with a pair of black books tied to her ankles. She stated in an interview that ‘the fact that the audience was basically all the other people on the street, a non-specialised, chance audience experiencing casually the artists’ actions while passing by, gave the work a more ephemeral, immediate and less precious character.’ (Perrot, n.d.) The artist never planned for a certain brand of the audience for this piece of work to directed to, it was a coincidental audience of regular people. Walking down a busy central street allowed her to convey her art to as ‘many souls as possible’. This left the full concept of the art to become unexplained and leaving the audience establishing their own theories.
Goins, J., n.d. Art Needs an Audience (Why Art for Art’s Sake Doesn’t Work). [online] Goins, Writer. Available at: <https://goinswriter.com/art-audience/#:~:text=In%201872%2C%20George%20Sand%2C%20a,Art%20needs%20an%20audience.> [Accessed 12 April 2021].
Perrot, C., n.d. Mona Hatoum, Performance Still 1985–95. [online] Tate.org.uk. Available at: <https://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/performance-at-tate/perspectives/mona-hatoum> [Accessed 12 April 2021].
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Perrot, C., n.d. Mona Hatoum, Performance Still 1985–95. [online] Tate.org.uk. Available at: <https://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/performance-at-tate/perspectives/mona-hatoum> [Accessed 12 April 2021].