Sociology of Cool, Written Final (unedited)

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high art is art created for art’s sake, to be appreciated like a painting hung in a museum

low art is art created for personal enjoyment, or for commercial purposes- not created with the intent of being seen as ‘art’

pop art is a blend of the two. Pop art questions the nature of art, and repackages low art for the museums



Jean Seberg- starred in many French art films. A lot of her work is meant to be seen as high art, but The Journals of Jean Seberg suggests that she herself didn’t see herself as an artist, or her work important (which goes against the idea of high art). In Jean’s eyes, she may have been making low art. A renowned artist rejecting the importance of his own work supports the theory behind pop art.



The Merchants of Cool- asks us to reexamine what we think of as high art (bands and movies that reject society’s rules and are seen as cool). It suggests that upon closer inspection we’ll see the hand of business and commercialism behind almost all popular entertainment- that most of it is in fact low art. This too supports the theory behind pop art.



Thomas Frank- writes about the commercialization of cool (and in turn, art). In doing so he asks what the difference between high and low art. This is the very same question that pop art sets out to answer. It asks whether low art that is widely known and popular becomes a form of high art just because it has been so well received.



Amiri Baraka- writes about how African Americans created the blues in an attempt to set themselves apart, and define themselves as a race. Art created with such large intentions must surely be classified as high art. The blues however was seen by the country (largely white) as low art.



David Amram- is a musician that achieved success as a classical composer (creating high art). He also played jazz and embraced many types of music seen as inferior (as low art) to European classical styles. His works that prevalently feature and embrace outside influences can be considered a type of pop art.



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Amiri Baraka in his book Blues People tells the story of African-Americans in this country. Baraka explains how blacks created art to distinguish themselves in a country where they weren’t seen as people. That’s how America’s cultural history begins- deep seated in racism. The first popular forms of entertainment in the United States had white actors with black face-paint singing and dancing like clowns. After the end of slavery, African Americans attempted to set themselves apart from this image of being inferior clowns with their art. Thomas Frank’s book is about how capitalism (and by extension, rich white people) takes the art that people (and specifically African-Americans) create, and made money on it. Baraka shows the effects of this- once the blues had been exploited and commercialized it stopped being ‘cool’, and blacks had to try something new to make their voice unique.



They found that new voice in jazz, which was originally very controversial among conservative whites. Soon though, the powers of capitalism described in Frank’s book found a market for nonconformity in teenagers, and sold them on the idea of jazz. The cycle continued- the blacks followed up with bebop, the whites eventually followed, so then came r&b, and rock and roll. Frank completes this story by bringing us to the present with hip hop and rap- the latest example of black art made popular by whites.



I found the Frank book surprised me more, because I think there’s a tendency for the struggle of the black musician to be better publicized. The advertising techniques described in the Frank book were therefore mostly new to me. That makes sense, because you aren’t supposed to see good marketing, and the creation of an image of a whole group of musicians that are constantly searching to define themselves is very good marketing. There’s an underlying message is that the really cool people listen to the music made by these black musicians. What they do is followed first by whites seeking cool, sometimes even before the African-American community lends it’s support (bebop was much more popular among the beats than it ever was among blacks).