When I first read Andrea Fraser’s “How to Provide an Artistic Service”, it was a little bit confusing and somewhat cumbersome. However after re-reading and reading an article she had written online, “Services: A Working Group Exhibition”, I began to understand her train of thought more. The article “Services: A Working Group Exhibition”, discussed the issues artists experienced when dealing with exhibitions and curators. Difficulties such as, the “’problem of getting paid’ to the experiences of censorship and concerns over the loss of autonomy” (Fraser). In simplest terms, in situations like this, when curators are being specific and demanding of the artists, yet the artists are not receiving compensation, the artists lose their freedom and begin to wonder who they are actually creating their work for. They ask the question of whether they are creating it solely for self-gratification or are they creating for the curator’s own purpose? This concept was explained more adequately in her online essay than it was in the essay, “How to Provide an Artistic Service”.

After reading the online essay, I can now agree with some of Fraser’s statements. Fraser says, “There are no artists I can think of who could credibly suggest that the functions their works serve have nothing to do with them or their artistic activity” (Kocur, Leung, 73). I agree with this statement, because even though my work is not being displayed in exhibitions, I can still say that I have never created a piece of artwork and it not relate to me in some way or another. I feel as if that would be impossible to do so, unless you were commissioned to create work in which you had zero interest. For example, some of the Renaissance painters were commissioned to create religious artwork, even though they could be considered atheist. Even in this case, I find it hard to believe that they’re personal self did not express itself in their work.

Relating back to Frasier’s essay, “Services: A Working Group Exhibition”, I think that if I were an artist who was having issues with receiving payment, then I would have the attitude of working for myself only. Just as Fraser says, “According to the logic of artistic autonomy, we work only for ourselves; for our own satisfaction, for the satisfaction of our own criteria of judgment, subject only to the internal logic of our practice, the demands of our consciences or our drives” (Kocur, Leung, 74). So in a sense we have to ask ourselves is the satisfaction we receive from creating artwork enough even when it comes to situations where we are on the verge of being broke due to curators not following through with the promised payment?

Kocur, Zoya, and Simon Leung. Theory in Contemporary Art since 1985. Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2005. Print.

Fraser, Andrea. “Services: A working Group Exhibition”. www.eipcp.net. Eipcp, n.d. Web. 31 March 2010.