I said in a previous post that authenticity in art is bullshit. That “authenticity” in art is most often a place to hide from your best efforts and excuse not putting in the required work because that work isn’t flowing as easily as you think it should.
But is there a place for authenticity in art?
Isn’t art without authenticity “souless,” “corporate,” made by “sellouts?”
If it’s not “authentic,” is it even Art (with a capital A)?
Well, let me start by asking you this:
What Even Is Authenticity?
When you say that your work should be “authentic,” do you even know what you mean by that?
The most common answer is that authenticity is “just being yourself.”
But again, what does that actually mean?
As we discussed in How To “Be Yourself” As An Artist, most artists see authenticity as the version of themselves and their art that feels effortless and that flows easily. Authenticity should never feel forced, hurried, or like “work.”
In this mindset, your “authentic” self is also your best self who is never lazy, never stuck, and never short of ideas.
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of authenticity.
“Authenticity is a collection of choices we have to make every day.” – Brene Brown
Your real self, your authentic self, is the you that could get you kicked out of the tribe. It is the you that, if revealed, could cause everyone and everything in your life to abandon you in disgust.
That’s the fear anyway.
That’s why it’s so difficult to be that authentic self. Even if you are keenly aware of who your “authentic” self is (and I don’t think most of us really are), to reveal that self to the world feels akin to standing naked in front of your high school algebra class and telling them to take their best shot.
To be authentic is often – more often than not – uncomfortable.
You’ll know you’re being your true, authentic self, when you are vulnerable – when you are opening yourself up to shame.
Which leads us to the next question:
Where Does Vulnerability Fit Into Your Art?
How do you paint your most vulnerable self?
How do you put your deepest self into a blog post, a YouTube video, a song, a film?
And if you figure out how do any of those, how do you do it more than once?
The obvious answer is you don’t.
Unless your art is intensely narcissistic (no judgement… Well, some judgement.), most of the things you create will have very little to do with you as an artist.
Every piece of work you do cannot be expected to channel your deepest truths into the world. Expecting your creativity to produce only soul-baring masterpieces is just asking for creative blocks, disappointment, and very little output.
So if the work itself isn’t a reflection of your “authentic and vulnerable” self, then where do authenticity and vulnerability fit into your art?
To finally zero in on our answer, let’s examine one more question:
What Makes Inauthentic Art?
When you think of art that’s “inauthentic,” what comes to mind?
For most people, I imagine it’s words like:
- Soulless
- Corporate
- Uninspired
- Hackneyed
- Cookie-cutter
- Derivative
Notice that most of these terms are not about what the art is, but how it feels. Inauthentic art is not about the “what” of your work, it’s about the “why.”
This tells us everything we need to know to answer our question.
Work is inauthentic when it’s done for the wrong reasons; when it’s made for the audience; when it’s made to chase a trend; when it’s made to chase success.
We call that “selling out” because we’re willing to substitute the art we want to make for the art we think someone will buy.
Which brings us to our final answer:
Authenticity in art isn’t about the choices you make, it’s about why you made them.
Your work itself may not always be “authentic” but the type of art you create is.
And the audience can feel it.
If you start a YouTube channel just because the topic is popular, the audience knows. If you write a book just to chase the next big trend in publishing (remember the flood of Vampire romances?), the audience can feel it. If you pander to an audience, they can smell it like a fart in an elevator.
Conversely, passion and sincerity cut through like a searchlight in the fog.
The audience can feel that too.
So good news for you writers of Vampire romance novels – your authenticity will always set you apart from the trend-jumpers.
The Punchline
So after all this, am I saying that authentic art really does boil down to “just be yourself?”
Well, yeah, kind of.
The point is this: authenticity in art is a by-product, not a technique.
You can’t “paint authentically,” or “dance authentically,” or “write authentically;” you can only paint, dance, or write.
Whether the result is “authentic” or not is an unavoidable result of whether you are “just being yourself.”
P.S.
None of this is to say that you should completely ignore your intended audience when you’re working, or that “authentic” art is inherintly better or more likely to “succeed” commercially… but those are discussions for another day.