Art has always been tightly interconnected with questions about morality and ethics. Wittgenstein (among many others) even said: “Ethics and Aesthetics are one.” and in reality liking or hating a painting or sculpture isn’t that far away from liking or hating a person, idea or belief.

Back in the day you had priests and philosophers and all sorts of other intellectuals – who were usually close to the ruling monarch – that helped shape what people of their time thought of as good or bad. With strong slogans like: “Pagans are bad.” “The king is great.” “Our culture is good, but the culture of our neighbouring country, well, not so much.” and many more, all inevitably leading to some form of action against the proclaimed bad and towards the perceived good.

And those who’s job it was to communicate such decisions were the creative elite, selected by the king or leading counsel to share the “right” and “just” views to all the peoples of the country. From church paintings to Stalins propagandists, their job was to transform wishes of the ruling class into an emotional and influential message that the peasants and proletariat could understand.
But in 2018, well, the idea of influence has been taken (or borrowed indefinitely) by companies, and as an interesting byproduct, they have taken the questions of morality along for the ride; just think about the important factors of today’s businesses for consumers, one of the first on the list on average is business ethics, not price or performance.

And now because of this change of influence from politician to business owner(s), I feel that we creatives are headed towards an interesting time. Now, it isn’t the government or the king and queen that have the greatest need for sharable or authoritative messages in form of sculptures, portraits, flyers …, but Google, Apple, Nike and Amazon. And all the millions of smaller companies of today. If in the past the creative could (or had to) serve or revolt against his or her government, now we are coming into a time where the people who rule do not need flags, insignias or speeches, but logos, corporate identities and copyrighting.