2020 – THE YEAR ARTISTS SURRENDERED TO THEIR MONKEYS
Why Artists Raised the White Flag Without a Fight and Ushered in A New Dark Age.
Since the beginning of the “Pandemic” in 2019, I’ve been putting together the complex puzzle of exactly what happened and why so many people reacted the way they did.
I was astounded with the high level cooperation and often zealous compliance with lockdowns and restrictions by many well-educated and (I thought) sophisticated people. Much of this phenomenon has been explained as “Mass Formation Psychosis by Dr Mattias Desmet, Dr Robert Malone and Dr Peter McCullough.
For me, there was still a missing puzzle piece – why did so many artists, visual and performing choose to give up their careers so easily and become cheerleaders for a bleak future of shuttered or sparsely attended theaters, galleries, museums and concert halls for fear of a virus with nearly a 100% chance of survival for young, healthy people? Why did so many artists prefer to stay at home watching Netflix and cat videos on You Tube, allowing their talent, skills and careers to atrophy?
Last week, my daughter found that missing puzzle piece in a paperback sitting on the top shelf of a bookcase in our living room. The book by artist Danny Gregory titled SHUT YOUR MONKEY – How to Control Your Inner Critic and Get More Done.
Hear that voice inside your head?
The one that nitpicks all your new ideas?
That's your monkey.
Of course, The Monkey! Every artist has one. I battle my personal monkey every time I sit down at my drawing table and stare at a blank piece of paper. Before I put pen to paper, I hear his damned voice loudly whispering, “Why bother! You don’t have the chops to do this drawing”. After I finish the drawing, before I have a chance to admire my handiwork, my monkey whispers again. “A mediocre drawing at best, you will never be as good an artist as Michelangelo! Give up already!”
It’s not just visual artists and writers that have these damn monkeys. Performing artists often suffer the more debilitating effects of stage fright:
In some cases, it’s pretty dreadful. One actor’s doctor told him he had to quit acting because his heart couldn’t take the stress. It can be very severe. Also, just the feelings of shame and humiliation. Many of these actors [with] severe stage fright felt like they were going to die.”
While the study focused on theatre actors, one “very well-known” star revealed that, while filming a TV series, she had backstage sick bags at all entrances and exits. She would vomit into a bag, go on and do her scene, then come off and vomit into another. This was the only way she could get through the shoot.”
What helped artists keep the monkeys in check pre-pandemic was the positive interaction between artists and their audience. For an actor or musician, an ovation is the tonic that beats back The Monkey. For visual artists it’s a packed opening at a gallery. Sometimes for me, it’s somebody looking over my shoulder while I’m sketching and saying “hey, that’s not bad”. Getting a bunch of “follows” and “likes” on Instagram doesn’t even begin to compare to the power of affirmation an artist receives from a live audience.
In 2020, that traditional, tried-and-true balm of in-person affirmation was taken away from artists. Galleries and museums closed. Classes and performances cancelled. Theaters and concert halls shuttered. In the beginning, it was supposed to last only two weeks, but as I write, nearly two years later, the closings and restrictions remain in many cities.
And how did artists react? A few went on social media composing memes protesting the lockdowns and restrictions as I have, but most artists I knew became cheerleaders for the crushing, censorious regime that to this day, threatens to destroy the fragile and complex web that sustains the arts that give meaning to the thing we call civilization. Failure to restore the arts will undoubtably usher in a new Dark Age.
And why would artists enthusiastically support an attack on the arts? The lockdowns and restrictions allowed everyone a reason to stay indoors, stare at screens and eat snacks. This “New Normal” regime demoted and sidelined the arts as “non-essential”. Wearing masks, clapping (like a monkey!), standing on dots, getting jabs and making sense of and complying with ever-changing new edicts replaced the daily chores of learning, practicing, creating and performing. Perhaps the worse disincentive to creating was the relentless propaganda campaign that elevated loafing on a couch all day in pajamas to an exalted virtue – no wonder so many artists chose to listen to their monkeys!
I often say that recent events have helped me to better understand history. We artists are weak. We do not have the same mettle as artists of my parents’ generation who performed music and plays in bombed out ruins as famine and war raged or sketched and photographed GI’s storming beachheads under withering machine gun fire. Nope we will likely be remembered as the generation of artists that surrendered civilization without a single shot fired… to our monkeys.
this verbal picture of the monkey seems fitting and is definitely dystopian... tragic... all those who allowed a label of "non-essential" were deceived to believe their sacrifice was for the greater good... it was all a slippery slope to tyranny by the compliant response to initial restrictions of our freedom... it proved that we have all learned very well how to live off "the public stimulus checks/ loans," rather than the honorable "fruits of our labor." what a concept! can't we just get rid of "the monkey???"