#commonly in the contemp art world they phrase it as the 'craftsperson vs artist' debate. and boy does that shit make me mad

[sanstropfremir]

how do u feel about the comments towards sf9's taeyang as a dancer? he often gets a lot of hate for being a "kai copycat" (and thus, is unoriginal and not a "good" dancer). its no surprise that kai does influence taeyang because he frequently mentions kai as his role model. but like, the hate towards him seems odd and uncalled for?

its only natural to be inspired by others and study and take pieces from their art (whether its conscious or not). its the same when i saw hoshi's spider, and was able to see how taem, his role model, inspires him a lot. similarly with how there are obvious stages of taem's that is a homage to michael jackson. i think what becomes distinguishable and makes someone an "artist" is when they're able to build their own identity from their influences. (not sure if that makes sense). but like, it takes years to do this; using taem as an example, it wasnt until want (in my opinion) did i think he really established himself as Taemin - the soloist. i think when taeyang is able to branch out into his own solo works, go through different trials, will we see him in his own light. but even now, though he's influenced by kai, he's still a very good dancer? one of the best from 3rd gen imo.

when you get famous for dancing sexy, everybody after you who dances sexy gotta live with being compared to you, basically. your observations are entirely right anon, no art is created in a vacuum and we are all recycling and remaking the same ideas in perpetual motion, and what distinguishes a creative artist is how you synthesize and adapt those ideas. hoshi did this particularly well with spider, as you pointed out, where it's obvious that he's influenced by taemin, but there are also his own original ideas and synthesis in there. i think a part of what's happening with taeyang is that he's a broody, tall dancer that sometimes mixes non-hiphop elements and kai is also a broody, tall dancer that mixes non-hiphop elements. and as soon as people hear that his inspiration is kai, they're going to immediately associate the two, and because the human brain loves to find patterns, once they're looking, they're seeing. personally i don't actually see that much of kai in what taeyang does, because in my eyes kai has an extremely unique form of movement that would be extremely hard for anyone to replicate (thanks to the ballet training and the injuries). it might also be that i don't retain a lot of memory of kai's dancing, but i've noticed more times that taeyang has lifted a taemin move than i have noticed him dancing similar to kai.

obviously if taeyang is like, lifting move sequences from kai wholecloth then yea, give him flak for that, but in order to be measured up to kai in the first place you have to be a pretty good dancer anyways? i would also personally put him in the upper half of third gen dancers too.

also this is gonna be a bit of a tangent but i'm feeling a bit feisty so i wanna speak on the whole "unoriginal" and "copying means you're a bad artist" thing. is a classical violinist who has never composed a piece of music but plays first chair in a symphony orchestra a bad artist? is a shakespearean actor a bad artist? if you making your living saying words, playing notes that hundreds of thousands of people in hundreds of years have released out into the world before you, are you unoriginal and a copycat? are your years of tireless training invalidated because you weren't the first person to play a mozart symphony or speak a hamlet soliloquy out into the ether?

there's an ugly conflation that has happened in coincidence with the rise of the myth of the artist monolith and post modernist art theory, and that is that skill does not equal artistry. that on the scales of judgement, idea and concept trumps skill in what is more valuable. and while i do agree, one thing that makes you a consummate artist is how you synthesize influences to create a new work, this is often not a solitary task. and very few people are actually good at it. art, especially of the performative variety, is collective, and the idea of the 'auteur' and auteur theory has dramatically destroyed the general public's understanding of that. no matter how many scripts you write, they do. not. exist in their intended form unless you have a crew to realize them. there is no kpop artist writing and producing and choreographing and styling themselves. there are no western artists either. there are stylists and composers and choreographers working tirelessly behind idol faces; taemin didn't compose advice, nor did he style it, or make the choreography, or scout the locations, or operate the cameras: does that make him less of an artist? there is no shame in being 'only' skilled, the big brained 'idea' people will always need you.