i feel like elaborating because of a couple of reactions this post has gotten and discussing this issue is infinitely important.
yes, art still exists in many forms. pop music is a form of art, modern cinema is a form of art et cetera. yes, these can be compared to the older "cheap" art that used to appeal to the masses yet be looked down upon by art critics at the time of its making (think shakespeare or the dadaist movement). and yes, art is definitely not gone, and it still pervasive and conspicuous in our advanced societies.
however, a great deal of this "new" art we come across in our daily life (music on the radio is always the example i go with because it illustrates the point so well) has not been created as a form of self expression or to make a statement. much of it has been created with a very clear goal in mind, the goal being profit. it has been created through asking the question, what are most people going to like?
a lot (definitely, definitely not all) of popular art that is created in our times is not created as an end, but as a means to an end. this is the problem. there are so many individual artists, both on social media and in real life, who make wonderful art as a form of self expression, or to help a cause, who make art because they want to make art. the problem starts when art is not made because someone wants to make it, but because someone wants to make money (and here i'm not talking about people selling their art - which is perfectly fine - but rather people creating art just so they can sell it, without at all being connected to it themselves).
max weber wrote a critique of modernity where he points out that usually old things have "more personality" or they "pass the test of time" because in our new, advanced world, everything moves so fast we don't manage to obtain any deep, personal connection to it. a hit song is forgotten weeks after it is released because it's already been replaced by songs that sound more or less the same. we walk out of the cinema, discuss the movie we have just watched, recommend it to a friend, and then put it aside and look forward to the next one. we change phones, cars, and clothes every year or two. things become very easily replaceable because everything, clearly and strictly conforming to the status quo, is just about the same. songs, movies, books - there is a clear formula that usually applies to them. so in a new, modern age where every product is so similar to the one next to it or the one that will come after it, it becomes a lot more difficult to connect to the art that is created. very few pieces of art nowadays stay around long enough to influence the world of art at all.
this type of art is so prevalent in capitalist societies because it is so easy to make profit with it, because it is what the masses want. many people are not up for hard mental reflection and difficult complicated art. after a long day of tiring meaningless work, they get home and want something light and fun to consume, something that doesn't take much effort, something that will make them feel good; and who can blame them? they just worked all day. they're tired. they just want to rest. this is how capitalist and the exhausting 9 to 5 every day of the week routine wears us out. and the people behind the art industry? they want to make products that are going to sell, obviously, and the products that are going to sell are those that are light, fun, and don't take much effort - so these are the products that are made en masse; can we call these products "art"? i don't know. they're products. nowadays many things we would consider art are products that are made with the intention of being sold. that's not to say you can't connect to them - but just that they are, as i said in my post, not what shapes the era of art we are currently in.
so yes, art might not be useless in our advanced capitalist society. but the way it is (sometimes) used, namely to make profit, is cruel and lifeless. art is a tool; it can be used to bring about a better world and it can be used to reinforce a very flawed one. and, at least to me, art stops being powerful when it's commodified.
and still - and this is the last point i will make, i promise - art and humanities, which are also relevant to this point, remain at the bottom of the social hierarchy. how many times have kids who wanted to study philosophy, history, music etc. eventually chosen to study something else because they were told they'll finish their degree and be stuck without a job, since these degrees are useless to any "meaningful" job you can do? self-development and self-expression are set aside in this society because first and foremost you are a worker who needs to make a living, and you can usually not make a living as an artist because if your art doesn't conform to the status quo it's not going to sell (with a few exceptions). the economy becomes more important than you. in a technologically advanced capitalist society, where efficiency is the number one priority, there is no place for things that don't contribute to the growth of the economy, no time for things that cannot be translated into numbers. the humanities and the arts are left behind for the sake of wide-scale economic growth, but with it, our society in itself is falling apart due to neglecting its humanities and its people feel miserable because they are forced to repress their very human side that craves connection with others and emotion and creativity, which is what humanities and art can provide.
tl;dr while art has not died out at all, a lot of popular art is created to make profit, which is basically the only way it can survive in a technologically advanced capitalist society where art and humanities are at the bottom of the social hierarchy.
titsay
prguitarman
theartofmadeline
snowghoul
andulkaphoto
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
