So proclaims The Guardian’s Jonathan Jones, which seems odd to me. Seriously? I’m trying to think of counterexamples, but I’m coming up with nothing. There’s the theory that Shakespeare’s plays may have been actually composed by a group of people, but as that’s only a theory, I’d be interested in hearing some better-documented examples of group-made art.

In his article “Not everyone can be an artist,” Jones takes a look at the rise of interactive and democratized artwork in the digital age. He says:

Some forms of interactivity are obviously good for art, as they are good for society. The more democratically ideas and information are shared, the more accessible art will be. [...] So democracy is great – except when it shapes the actual work of art. I do not believe a great work of art has ever been created by communal consensus, let alone by multiple editors. There will never be a wiki-masterpiece. This is because art, if it has any value at all, is the product of deep and often rationally incommunicable perceptions, and to try and explain or share those perceptions in a communally created artwork will negotiate and re-edit them to banality.

Participatory art is a denial of talent. It panders to a cosy lie, that everyone is equally able to create worthwhile art. What chance have we of nurturing those rare wonders in our midst, the born artists, if we claim this infantile right to put on a badge that says “artist”?

I think it’s a little premature to begin making claims about how true crowdsourced artwork will fail, as this new art from is only in its infancy (See also: “Why the Internet will fail” article from 1995–d’oh). Neil Gaiman and the BBC’s crowdsourced Twitter audiobook last fall wasn’t an enormous success in turning out a high-quality piece of literature, but it’s helped to kindle the recent interest in crowdsourced art; I imagine Gaiman and the BBC’s project will be only one of many large-scale collaborative art projects we’ll be seeing in the coming months/years. And maybe someone will come along soon and find a way to make crowdsourced art a bit more palatable.

Wild predictions aside, I think Jones has some valid points, and also some invalid ones. Read more »