The question is not, “What is art?”, it’s what you’ll leave behind that holds the truth of you’ve created; and to what extent your knowledge of life has reached; from both the seen and hidden worlds and with whatever medium you choose, do it with honesty and real understanding of all the tools we’ve been given — and a little study of the mechanics and the history of art helps.
Because of this dull questioning that has plagued this fairly new concept we call “art-scene”, a long history of corruption and devilish greed has spoiled the term art; simply asking a question or daring to defy to understand such abstract concepts and realities, this doesn’t get you anywhere you haven’t been before and it’s that which we do this, to see what we’re capable of without going over the edge that appears to fall further below the more time passes.
What’s more obvious is that certain people have come to realize is that art can be commodified, versions of art that can set them “financially free”, so they jump into the crowded pool and push out the same ideas and products; they tell themselves it’s expression but their personality depends on the attention and the monetary gains; they read or watch content of famous artists from the past and see the price tags etched onto classic pieces, then decide they can do it too and maybe they’ be remembered — more attention even after life. They go to university to study it, to copy it, to replicate it with a slight tweak in pastel shades, or thinner lacquered Venetian Reds, and the same portrait of some idolised celebrity.
What I want to know is, why? Why choose to do this if it means not delving into the depths of the human experience, past the safety net the mind sets for us (regardless of free will, there is that which holds us sane), and why not peek behind the heavy curtain over your heart to see what makes you, you. With this first insight into the world within and outward, we begin the journey not only of the normal path but also of the creative, intellectual (if fortunate enough to gain it continuously), and the painful stress of choosing to do this art thing after we’re long gone.
No, don’t let gloomy, and this shouldn’t bum anyone out, this rawness we find within ourselves is what should be used to transform the material world into beauty from the chaos, (or vice versa). I think of the ancient sculptors and the perfection of their marble works. I think of the times they lived in, no phones or internet! Just a reality where raw imagination had to contend with the harsh, brutal world around them.
And yet in today’s artists’ world, we are inundated with AI slop and the Warhol Soup copy of the copy of the copy…These new “artists” that explicitly make it known they are an artist and immediately send you a link to their shop, is a redflag — in my opinion this is what turns me away, yet if it’s helping those few that need it to survive, fine — but there are leeches in this lake pool, they’ll tear and push down those others scratching for the fabricated top tiers, reaching for that made up nostalgia of being dead and famous, and getting their art up at Sotheby’s. While art fades, peels, and crumbles…(if it’s not all backed up by dirty billions and a bunker somewhere.)
To be honest, I want the art community to thrive and keep up with the constant and rapid changing of modern society; it’s important to keep art alive in whatever way it manifests. Unfortunately, I sometimes have a pessimistic outlook on today’s art world, and I can’t help but feel depressed; it conjures up a premonition of near-total collapse, or like a fold unto itself. Art is what should be the thing we turn to when we are stripped of all we thought we knew to be true — the money, the house, the relationships, the status, and even the freedom to practice the arts.
What is happening now is an unconscious act. The takeover of the arts has been slow, concurrent, and deliberate, and our freedom to create in the purest sense of the word is up for contention. This is not to change ourselves or our bodies, but the reality in which we find ourselves. The material world was never truly ours, yet we can attempt to control and shape it to glorify the beauty and the good we were given.
Some artists choose the path of chaos, expressing the darkness and violent reality of opposition to the good; others create works that exemplify the Christian God and all that has been created for us — an act of eternal artistry. These two forces, the yin-yang, will make sure that future generations see the level of understanding we have reached, in symbolic form and imagery easily interpreted — that’s only if an apocalypse or whatever cataclysmic event doesn’t entirely wipe out our planet first.
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Maybe the art world today does require a reset of some kind to get us back into using the bare necessities. We’ll see just how talented some are at only using raw ingredients to paint or sculpt the things our ancestors used. It’ll be a challenge to create works that equal or rival those of the ancients. Nowadays, we have print-on-demand, 3D printers, and digital code that can magically hold monetary value before getting rug pulled.
After all, aren’t we all artists in some way? I am a spoonful of sugar hopeful for the future, that the true artists and their works will outlast the commercial and fast-food art. I see a world where what’s left of us and our art is the busts in the rubble, the canvases in the ashes, the smouldering copper wires of the computers and the servers in a feedback loop hallucination — and all that’s left is the oratory art of language and speech, the use of our ability to convey abstractly the raw ideas and meaning of whatever is left after we are long gone through our voice.
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