Why Artists Often Decide to Work Under a Pen Names

For centuries there have been controversial debates about the role of art and the artist. This discussion has animated the mind of many thinkers and till today it remains an unresolved topic. Nietzsche argued in favour of the concept of monological art, art that does not require an audience, but is instead understood as an individual expression, while the counter thesis argues that art is a form of communication and therefore must have an audience to absorb that message. Making a position on this debate is not the aim of this essay; instead, it will consider both positions, paying particular attention to the cases of interaction with an audience and the strategies to outset this communication. My essay aims to analyse the reasons why artists often decide to work under a pen names. 

Investigating the past and the present of the phenomenon through different cases could help us to understand the strategies artists adopted as they created new personas (therefore their branding strategies), arriving to today, namely the digital era where more and more often “normal” people or non-artist feel the need to adopt an online alias.

Artist Brand

In a culture-saturated world where everybody has the possibility of having a voice, emerging from the general noise and settle in the art world or show business as an artist with relevant influence it is a challenge that requires a defined plan of action or a strategy. Drawn by business theory elaborated by Michael E Porter in 1980. “Brand strategy is the creation of your brand in order to make it highly distinctive, different, memorable, credible, trustworthy and extremely likeable by your ideal target customer.” Recent studies about branding have shifted focus from the brand creator to the consumer response to understand better how brands create meaning. Many factors, such as a consumer’s background, cultural codes, ideology and knowledge can influence the consumer reaction to a brand. The audience is not seen any more as the passive receiving end of the producer-user paradigm, but as active participants who in perceiving constructs, identifying with it and create a meaning out of it. Comment by Jonathan Dykes:

Much more than in the past we are exposed to brands, many of which are visual: logos, colours, packaging and product design; brand identity and marketing campaigns are often based on visual characteristics that aspire to create a unique visual identities.

The connection with the art world embedded of visual inputs seems direct, however marketing expertise seems cautious in taking contributions from the art worlds in matter of branding knowledge. Artists offer a sterling example of a brand creation, aiming to create an image that will build a recognizable look, style and name. Successful artists can be identified as brand managers, constantly engaged in the competitive field creating, developing and promoting themselves as recognizable products, because their distinguishable brand will add value to their artwork.

Andy Warhol is a great example of the artist as a brand. His unique and multidisciplinary approach to art and his active participation to the cultural life of his time helped to create his character, to elevated his status as celebrity and to nourish his myth even after his death. His art is immersed in the landscape of its generation: the culture of public image. Through his sad and beautiful heroes or his grocery products becoming celebrities, and his reproductions in series he demonstrate the power of mass media and the disconnection between image and lived experience. Andy Warhol was a pioneer; after him, many contemporary artists began to interact with brands in their work, creatively or critically, exploring the role of branding in a consumer culture, incorporating commercial symbols in their art, creating a visual brand thanks to thought their style and responding to the logic of the art market widely influenced by brand; for instance name as Caravaggio, Mark Rothko, Picasso, El Greco, constitute well known brands globally, no other market in fact has such a strong relationship between name recognition and value.

Pseudonimity or Pen Names 

Pseudonym derived from the greek ψευδώνυμο (pseudṓnymon), literally false name. It is the name that a person assumes for specific reason, it differs from the original name and it is a part-time name, or a name used only in certain context to enhance a particular persona or alter ego that differs from the original identity, for example to distinguish professional from private life.

Different in time, history and context are the uses of pseudonyms, besides artistic reasons as stage names pen names, screen names, we find bureaucratic or religious reason as regnal names, warriors names, emperors, and popes. Pseudonymity is not a new concept; examples can be found in the Bible, where publication under false names, or under the name of a well known person was used not to conceal the identity of the writer but to highlight the importance of content or the origin of the source. There are many reasons why an artist might want to choose an alias: the aforementioned Andy Warhol, for example, was born Andrew Warhola, given his original Slovak family name, but the Americanized form give us an example of a choice made to fit the environment he was living and working. Not only geographical reasons made artists change their names, but also case of homonymity, lack of artistic ring, privacy or just to reinvent themselves.

Working under a pseudonym could be the right strategy for an artist, but it is an important decision to take, considering that it should be definitive;changing a name multiple times can put at risk the artist’s professional reputation , and it could also cause legal inconvenience.

Pen names: literature offers many examples of authors choosing a pseudonym— also called nome de plume or pen name. Since Biblical times we know that authors have published under pen names. In many cases,a pseudonym was chosen to avoid confusion with another author name, and in doing so to maintain individuality. The genre of writing can greatly influence the decision of an author to choose an alias. Sometimes the original name is believed to don’t fit for the genre, while sometimes authors write in multiple genres and so prefer to maintain separate identities for his or her different writing styles. The contents of writing can also bring authors to want to conceal their true identity, and that was a practice really common in the 18th century, when writers or journalist used to publish illegal or controversial letters or talk about themes which were at the time considered scabrous. Today, a pseudonym can be used to cover the true identity of an author writing of espionage or true crime titles. The most famous and widespread phenomenon in literature concerning the nome de plume occurred during the 19th century, when many women adopted a masculine pseudonym; strategy selected occasionally to conceal their true identity, but most of the time dictated by sexism and gender inequality, which led women to choose a masculine name in order to be taken seriously as an artist that deserved to be published and read. The sister Brontë for the publication of their novels choose a male aliases, Emily Brontë published her novel Wuthering Heights under “Ellis Bell” and her sister Charlotte choose for her novel Jane Eyre “Current Bell”; Christian male name were more accepted in the 19th century and lot of prejudice loomed upon female writers. Not too far back in time, in 1960 we have another case of a woman author who decided to publish under an androgynous name: Nelle Harper Lee for the publication of her first book To kill a Mockingbird decided to drop her first name Nelle and thus created a sense of mystery around her gender. Harper Lee gained a deserved success, winning a Pulitzer prize and her novel become one of the most influential books of the century.

This is still a men dominated world, especially in specific context, and we are not too far from the Bronte sister and the reasons for them to publish under a man names. In 1995 Joanne Rowling wrote the first book of what became a massive publishing phenomenon: Harry Potter. Rowling was advised by her publisher to choose a male name as a better fit for her sales, considering that her target audience was composed mainly of young boys would have preferred to read a man author. Years after the Harry Potter saga, J.K. Rowling experimented herself in a different genre, writing a crime novel titled The Cuckoo's Calling under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, not only to disguise from the reader her previous success but also to fit in a genre still dominated by male writers. Observing under a strategic eye,the choices adopted by authors in selecting a pseudonym, it is possible to find motivation referable a focus strategy and benefit of positioning strategy. “Strategic positioning means performing different activities from rivals’ or performing similar activities in different ways” (Porter). If in a business sector positioning strategy allows the company to individuate specific areas of action where they can outshine and beat the competitor, in the literary world, the reason for authors of creating an entity to present their work, seems very much influenced by a deep study of the market- in this case dictated by the genre of publication- and knowledge of their rivals (often the gender of them).

Being a perfect fit it is one of the key action of a positioning strategy. Knowing the composition of your competitors and your specific target audience will help identify a persona that could be conformed to the landscape in which author act. Nowadays freedom of expression and the overcoming gender division, seems to reduce the phenomenon of women writing under a male pseudonym, however many writers still choose a different names made up to fit the genre in which they writing.

That is the case of David Bowie. David Bowie born in Brixtol in 1947 was a singer, musician, innovator, style icon and a strategist. From the beginning of his career, against the most popular marketing strategies that suggested to build a cohesive and coherent character, he dedicated himself instead to recurrent reinvention of his persona and of his music. For over five decades he brought on stages all over the world multiple personas, published albums under different pseudonyms, impressed the public with amazing shows and mixed and various style trends, but yet he never lost his audience that loved and celebrated him until his death and beyond. From a strategic point of view Bowie is a real rarity. In the show business many artists, just like companies, “refresh” their product to keep in line with market trends. Bowie not only shifted in genre and look, but he reinvented multiple identities, his absolute risk and innovation and he repeatedly success in doing so. Many artists stay afloat in time pandering to the logic of the market, but David Bowie reshaped the market!

Bowie not only had immense knowledge of the creative industry he was working in, but he was also influenced by the work of one of the most provocative thinker and consultant in matter of management,the british Stafford Beer. Beer was introduced to him by Brian Eno which also had a strong influence on Bowie, thanks to many artistic collaborations and the through his “Oblique Strategy Cards” a card base method to promote creativity in moments of doubt. Bowie was particularly fond of Beer’s book Brain of the Firm where he developed the concept of a viable system inspired by the human body and it nervous system. A viable system model is a model created to describe any system or organization able to survive despite the change of its environment thanks to the ability of reinventing or changing identity. Viable systems have the quality of adapt to fit the environments or reshape the environment to fit them, as in the case of Bowie that not only changed himself many times and reinvent his identity but he also prepared the environment around to present his latest persona reshaping the cultural landscape. David Bowie (born Davy Jones) created over the course of his career 10 different alter egos identity using always different pseudonyms. The surname Bowie was inspired by American pioneer Jim Bowie.

Ziggy Stardust is first alter ego and probably the most famous of his career: a bisexual alien rock star, Major Tom his hedonist alter ego come with the success of the album Space Oddity, Aladdin Sane, (a lad insane) inspired by his schizophrenic brother, the White Duke coincident with the time where Bowie survived on milk and cocaine and between few more it is worth it to remember Halloween Jack first entity born after the suicide of his Ziggy Stardust. This variety of egos become the trademark of the Bowie and the wide breadth of his art touched many people, assuring in the years an immense following of loyal fans and a strong legacy.

Conclusion

The logics behind the decision to work or act under pseudonym are intricate and sometime not attributable to a specific strategy. However some tendency are attributable to some of the generic strategy described by Michael E. Porter in 1980. In his book “competitive advantages” porter outline three main strategies to help business in any type of industry to improve their competitive advantages: Cost leadership, Differentiations and Focus. Advisable for every company is to choose one of this strategy to succeed in the market. It is difficult to find defined affinity within those direction outlines and the choice of an alias, but the concept are in part applicable.

“The generic strategy of focus rests on the choice of a narrow competitive scope within an industry. The focuser selects a segment or group of segments in the industry and tailors its strategy to serving them to the exclusion of others” and this seems to recall for example the decisions of many writers to select a name which will fit the genre of their publication and the acceptance of a determined target audience.

Another connection could be founded with the differentiation strategy that is applied when “a firm seeks to be unique in its industry along some dimensions that are widely valued by buyers. It selects one or more attributes that many buyers in an industry perceive as important, and uniquely positions itself to meet those needs” and about uniqueness there is a direct recall to Bowie, with his own subversive strategy seems to have responded to a more generic logic of a market creating a different and unique product base on the instability of his identity, that added value to his performance and built a myth around his figure.

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