wow - really interesting idea. really troubling actually. depends why it is that you hate them, I suppose. I think it would have to be a very specific kind of hate, wouldn't it? For instance, if you loved their work then surely we would have to deduce that you respected them or esteemed them quite highly on some level to begin with?

So if we're dealing with an emotion that combines hate and respect I guess we have to ask ourselves what kind of experience of spectatorship that could arise from. I think the main cause for this kind of dynamic is when you get to know the artist, they blow you off for whatever reason, you admired them before and then you're left with this bittersweet aftertaste that stays with you. For masochists, the exquisite pain that revisits them every time they look at their work could render the art even more alluring and exciting.

I guess it's touching on the idea of reception and experience or perhaps the issue of spectatorship being personalised by the emotion of direct experience.

The question is: Why would you hate anyone??

but beyond that i think that you're dealing in abstractions that are probably too varied and obscure to really identify, f:lux. I mean, we all have mixed feelings about everything anyway. And lets face it, the people we love are the ones we find easiest to hate at times too.

What you're proposing is that the art is very much separate from the artist - that's a very modern notion, I suppose. Kill the artist. The work is the only testament to the time, it speaks universally: authorship is essentially valueless etc. If that's the case, then it is totally irrelevant how you feel about the artist anyway. He is merely a cipher, an incidental - it shouldn't matter if he's your pal or your worst enemy.

Otherwise, what kind of situation did you have in mind when you brought in this thread?

From my experience, so to my knowledge, the whole issue of celebrity has gradually infiltrated the Art world as much as a lot of other domains. I mean, I can remember my own art history lessons being weird, I thought, because the tutor I had started any discussion about artists X or Y in terms of what sexually transmitted disease they died of before going on to talk about their work. I can then think of two big debates that have taken place in the last decade - Herge's Tintin stuff and Celine's novel's being heatedly discussed in terms of their politics. Is it possible to wholeheartedly admire Celine's aesthetic regardless of his purported anti-semitism? And so on.

There are people I've physically met, or encountered otherwise, whose work I've admired regardless of what I've thought of them as people. I'm just curious to know what others think about this sort of thing.

I can't think of a single instance where I like the work but not the artist, or vice-versa. The two are inseperable in my mind. Though, in some cases, the less you know about the artist the more appealing they are in your mind because your imagination can fill in the blanks and turn them into larger then life figures, esp. musicians.

I'm reading a book by Nietzsche right now, and I can't decide if he's a genius or the most arrogant, self-important ranter who ever lived.

BTW, it's been a long time since I read Tintin...what's wrong with him? Let me guess, one of the bad guys had a big nose, therefore it's anti-semetic?

ohmigod, Landon, I can't tell you! It would be such bad karma, incidental corruption of souls, ouch!

Etc. Actually, I can't remember what all the fuss was about Tintin. Probably nothing much, except that they were all first published before the advent of PC? But I could be wrong, Tintin could have been really sinister...

erm i dont know any artists personally :(

has anyone out there shagged an artist and then felt that it changed the way they felt about their art? Go on, tell us yer tales!

you know, a bit like Carrie and Petrovsky.