As The Useful Becomes Useless, It Becomes Art
The story here isn’t about why I’m on the Kate Spade mailing list. The story is about their new line of “paper.” It’s stationary, of course. The kind of formal paper people use to send out wedding invites and thank yous and whatever other little missives that email or AIM seem too uncouth for.
I made this point before, in a discussion of how painting evolved from trade-craft to art after the development of the camera, but I love seeing a new example.
Even as paper documents become decreasingly valuable to us — how many of us cringe when offered a printout of a web page? — formal, artistic uses of paper seem to hold on. Does this Kate Spade release affirm the overall usefulness of paper, or its boutique value as an icon of class and privilege?
My argument here isn’t against paper, and certainly not against art. My argument is that technological development changes the value and use of everyday objects. In this case, Crane, the manufacturer of the Kate Spade paper collection, used to sell through stationers in small shops throughout the country, but technology has changed that market. The bread and butter of those shops — printing letterhead stock for local businesses — has largely disappeared as those businesses shift more communications online, use on-demand printing, or go elsewhere for more complex work like full-color brochures. Crane has already missed it’s opportunity to lead the technology that’s changing it’s market, so now they’re forced to try selling their old products in lower volumes to niche markets where the Kate Spade is use to show the privilege and class of the consumer.
The internet changes everything, where will you be when you realize it?
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And why, pray tell, are you on the Kate Spade mailing list? And, more importantly, when I do I get my KS stationery missive? Don’t even say it’s in the mail.
[...] Casey tackled the role of art in society last winter, “As the Useful Becomes Useless, It Becomes Art“. Anything that puts “art” and “useless” in the same sentence immediately gets my back up but that doesn’t mean he’s not on to something – perhaps when art becomes commodified, it changes the source of its value. I believe art has a very real and important role in community and communication, but when it’s bought and sold it becomes a private transaction instead of a public conversation. That’s not necessarily good or bad, I mean, artist gotta eat, right? It’s just different. The art I’m interested in is the kind that gives the creator a voice, an outlet, a platform for expression that he might not have had otherwise, but that also opens a door to relating to, reaching out to others. That’s why my Monday morning routine includes a visit to Postsecret, this morning a high school art teacher left a comment about a postsecret-inspired project she did with her students: …We attached the 300 secrets to a 4-foot by 9-foot background to create a “Veil of Secrets” that was hung in the main area of the school. Not ten minutes later, an administrator ripped it off the wall saying, “I cannot imagine a viable learning experience in public art education that could justify the inclusion of such things.” [...]
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