Establishing your own model of Cultural Production

In this era of “post-integrity” the former polarizing forces of “selling out” versus “keeping it real” have been replaced by many shades of legitimacy and authenticity. As a cultural producer, whether you consider yourself an artist or designer, the challenge is to take advantage of the variety of contexts that help frame your work.

In this day and age, a graphic on a skateboard that hangs on a gallery wall has a far different meaning and value than the skateboard for sale at the local skate shop. The beauty of our current cultural circumstance is that one has the ability to place one’s work in a variety of contexts and as a result our work grows in meaning and value. Cultural production is no longer mutually exclusive to one setting and as a consequence the artist/designer has a responsibility to forge their own path and to flex the power of their own creative voice in responsible and meaningful ways.

As we move forward, we can not prevent the co-oping of the value of a celebrity image or the gross commercialization of an otherwise authentic creative impulse. All we can do as creative individuals is support the contexts we believe in and actively point out the contexts we feel devalue one’s creative efforts. In the end, creativity and commerce are a balancing act with no real right and wrong.

more at http://athleticsnyc.com/blog/entry/design-and-the-search-for-authenticity