"What is art" essay
If I were to ask a ton of people "What is art?", I would get a ton of different answers. That's because everyone has their own definition of art. Art can mean one thing for one person and the complete opposite for another. Though saying "Art is whatever you want it to be" sounds like an easy answer, I believe it is true.
For some people, art is an instrument to voice opinions, shine light on an important issue to them - make a stand and portray it publicly. For some, art is meant to inspire or invoke feelings. For some, art is a technical skill that needs to be practiced and honed. For some, art absolutely has to have some sort of meaning. For some, art is meant for the artist to express whatever they are feeling. For some, art is just meant to be aesthetically pleasing and nice to look at with no meaning or purpose at all. For ME, it is all of the above.
I think trying to come up with a definite, general definition of art is ridiculous because you can't define someone else's creativity and that's what art is - someone's creativity and how they choose to use it and what they use to express it. Every artist defines their own art and has their own mission and purpose with their art. It is going to vary from artist to artist which is why I believe the definitition of art should be a very loose one.
My purpose of art is just to create. Sometimes I don't have a specific reason why i need to make art, I just have the need to and that in and of itself is good enough for me. Art helps me express what I feel when I have no other outlet for expression. It's a good venting process for me. Other times I create something just because I want to make something that looks nice. Though others may not agree that it is art, they can't argue otherwise.
An artist named Guillermo Vargas Habacuc used a starving dog as art. In the exhibition, the dog was show cased slowly starving to death. This to me is not art but it can however fit into the definition of art. If art is meant to inspire and invoke feeling, this exhibition certainly did so in many. Many people were outraged, upset, sad, angry, and even scared by this. If art is meant to make a statement and shine light on an important topic, this exhibition certainly did so. Would anyone have cared about that dog starving on the street? Or was is just that it was being displayed in an art museum that suddenly made people have a change of art? What about starvation in humans in other parts of the world? Maybe it inspired someone to do something about starvation in the world. If art is simply just meant to shock, I think we can all agree that exhibition certainly did so as well. This to me is not art because art should never be used to harm no matter what the intention is but I cannot argue that it is not art.
Art can teach people things in ways literal media cannot because art is something you experience and some things can only be taught through experience. The starving dog exhibition is a good example of this. If anyone was in fact inspired by this to actually do something about starvation, it was because they experienced it. If they had just read about the starving dog, would it have invoked such strong feelings? Or did SEEING it and hearing it and actually living the experience cause them to react? I believe it is the latter.
The way I define art is through a process of hearing a thousand of other people's definition of art because it is a collective process. Art is universal and experienced differently throughout people in the world therefore it must be a collective definitition.
posted by Lindy @ 1:37 PM
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