Making a work of art is hard, but if you can make art, making a work of art that wins awards is easy.
In contemporary times, awards are handed out by juries. But not juries made of random people, juries of peers, people who already work and participate in the field of art in question. This makes things much easier, because the kind of people who are on art juries are mostly the same. Earlier eras had many different opinions and aesthetic sensibilities across the world, and even sometimes disunion within countries or cultures. But now we are blessed with a reign of peace and conformity. The people who are on art juries went to respectable international universities and have broadly the same moral-social values associated with the global liberal upper-class. They are comfortable and enjoy traveling to other countries, and believe it would be better if the general population were more like them. Sometimes they talk about politics, but this is dangerous, for even though they are all to the left of center, there is the potential for disagreement among the shades of left, so typically it is easiest just to discuss what they have in common.
The key to winning awards is to appeal properly to the jury on a population basis. If you make a work of art that is the favorite art work of a single jury member, you will not win, even if they are so moved that they commit themselves to ending world hunger and succeed. It is much better to make an art work that appeals lightly to everyone, because that way you will win not only one award, but many, because all juries have the same kinds of people.
It would be a mistake, however, to make a work of art that everyone enjoys. The pleasure of experiencing is appreciated, but is a lower emotion. If the juries simply selected works of art that they enjoyed, what would be the point of them having gotten all their degrees? True quality in a work of art is an aesthetic beyond mere enjoyment: the film or painting or VR experience must be serious, must say something about the world. Sometimes comedies say things about the world, but they are usually too enjoyable, and juries enjoy them so much that they would be embarrassed to give them an award. Comedies are a bad choice.
So what should an award-winning piece of art say? “You must change your life” can work sometimes, especially for an old harmless poem, but actually most jury members don’t want to change their lives. Certainly one must avoid any possibility that a jury member will disagree with what the work of art is saying, if that happens they will never choose it. However one must also be careful to avoid statements that are too easy. “People are fundamentally good” may be a nice message, but if everyone agrees with it then the juries are not able to show any taste or distinction. In fact a movie with the message “people are fundamentally good” sounds like it might be fun and enjoyable and not involve any suffering on the part of the experiencer. So the statement must be something that all juries agree with, but that still presents something intense and difficult, and doesn’t say something that just everyone would agree with.
This then is the formula to making an award-winning piece of art. The work of art should be only moderately enjoyable and should make a statement that all juries will agree with, but that they believe not everyone will agree with. “Climate change is bad” is an excellent one. All juries believe that climate change is bad, and they believe that they are good and moral for this belief that the general public disagrees with them on. Artworks that play to this win awards. One must be careful to avoid related statements that might divide juries though. “Climate change is bad and people who oppose clean energy for aesthetic reasons are making the problem worse” might upset some people. “Climate change is bad but to insist on degrowth and population shrinkage is cruel to the developing world” is a no, and even worse would be “Climate change is bad and you shouldn’t fly to art festivals to be on an art jury that could have met online.”
One can tweak these messages for their general receptivity as long as enjoyment is kept properly tuned. For a very difficult and hard-to-watch film, the message “the holocaust was very bad” can work, although you can’t imply any lasting guilt for the audience. On the other hand, messages that involve more specific cases in the world and will allow jury members to demonstrate they are cultured knowers of world affairs can get away with a lot: “it’s bad to discriminate against deaf people” or “Syrian refugees have a very hard life.” The most successful and easiest message of all is “Art is very important” because naturally this is the message that all juries agree with and is the signature belief that distinguishes them from the general population.
The most important quality that any work of art should have is that an audience member can feel good afterwards. They should feel educated, moral, and validated. This is what distinguishes art from mere entertainment, entertainment simply makes you feel good while you experience it, but art makes you feel good afterwards because you have proved that you are better than people who only like entertainment. People who consume large amounts of art with a delicate and sensitive palette might also be cruel in their personal lives, support politically disastrous initiatives for their own benefit, and overall make the world a much worse place, but their love of art somehow redeems them.
These simple instructions should be a great tool to making award-winning art. It is incredibly fortunate that all art cultures are becoming largely the same and that those involved in them are imposing greater levels of conformity through education and political litmus tests. As it stands one still has to make adjustments to art based on the medium and specific award-granting body but we may get past such details soon enough. Cannes and the Oscars will need to work out their average, visual art needs to make some concessions to people who don’t want to sit through grad-school lectures on outdated French philosophy, but we are well on track to a simple and easy formula so that we can always make award-winning art.