About fear of art

Fear transformed

Amazing how my fear of art has transformed so elegantly smooth into sweet mellow megalomania…not that this is the desired stage to remain in, but at least it allows me to create.
At the time this article was written I wasn’t even close to where I stand today in terms of my relationship with art and my sense of security and familiarity with it, but first and foremost with myself. I Thank God, The Buddha and Vipassana meditation for that.

A calm scenery for a spooky situation

My ex-girlfriend’s sister studied stage and set design. In one of the projects the students got, they were asked to design a dress that would be assembled out of triangles and quadrangles on the one hand, and which embodies the personality of some famous historic figure on the other hand. The dress was to be presented in a certain way, accompanied with acting, poetry, pantomime, etc. so we went there to see it…

Over-used embarrassment

What left the most significant impression on me was the feeling that most of the attendants, which included friends and family members of the students, didn’t really seem to understand what it was that was going on in there. Every student came on stage with his or hers vague attempt to do their homework and presented them. At some point, or so it seemed, the presentation ended, but no one was able to realize it. Wrapped and sheltered by my own embarrassment, I was able to identify some brave soul whom embarrassingly and hesitatingly started to clap his hands. Then another one joined his bodacious enterprise and quickly stopped… and then started again, along with several other followers… and so until the entire crowd was dragged after the vanguards and certainty spread across the room, that this particular presentation was indeed over and done with.

This recurred with most of the presentations, and it was so clear and evident in the atmosphere around, that we are all sitting there terrified, because the most important thing to each and every one of us at the moment is not to be regarded as someone who doesn’t understand “art”. Collective embarrassment floated upon the surface like black and dirty over-used cooking oil inside a McDonald’s deep fryer.

About art Nazis

Art. Every so often a solidarity of people consolidates and determines another name or definition to the nature, essence or boundaries of art. This solidarity rises up and says: “Well, ladies and gentleman, this form of expression may also be regarded as art, so say we. If you paint like this, that would be called ‘Impressionism’, that is art, but if you paint the same thing in the same manner and then tape an old piece of newspaper on it, well… that would be considered garbage until we determine otherwise. Period”. Over time this solidarity disassembles under the pressure of the infinity of art itself, or in layman’s terms, it is simply being replaced or competed by other rivalry solidarities of the frustrated artists which were not accepted into the hugging consensus of the contemporary art. And so they give their art form some dynamite name and define as art gradually greater eccentrics under that name.

Monopoly, the game?

But who received the monopoly over the definition of what is art and who was it that turned that definition to an absolute one? Who determined art’s facial features? Who determined what art itself prefers as her essence, substance and definition? Is it art itself or rather a handful of people with interests, the chosen handful which out of fear rather than out of love, out of apathy rather than out of consent were given the right to judge, because all the rest are simply not interested enough or are plainly to afraid to allow themselves to think otherwise? Mussolini, Hitler and Ceausescu ruled with iron fists for many years – the status-quo, the silent consent is not necessarily an indicator of identification, or of wisdom, or insight, or of the courage to follow a certain idea but rather of fear, which as long as it does not cross that line of critical mass, it is not being expressed as a revolution or chaos.

What’s your name, Mis?

But what is art, actually? Isn’t it the ability to turn into a modem, a translator of an experience of a single moment, charged with infinite nuances, encompassed within horizon to horizon of aspects, into this page you are reading now? Is it not the personal way of each and every one of us to express his complexes and frustrations, to convey an idea, emotion or thought using paper, clay, paints or iron and to bring his abstract by nature outlook upon life onto the visible material, into the level of a visual display? And if so, what then makes it more or less art, than something that was furrowed into a fashionable frame? It is precisely that same rigid, vision-less and frozen frame, which was once the vanguard breakthrough of someone who rebelled against the conventions isn’t it? Only later on, when the barrier got broken everyone started following him.

The art dam

It’s just like having an overdraft: as long as you don’t have one you won’t have one, but once you overdrawn one dollar, you have broken a barrier of consciousness, a wall of principle and it will no longer make that much of a difference whether that overdraft is of 1 dollar or of 3,000 dollars. Thus a standard is set which quickly turns into a mental fixation, until the next vanguard who becomes fed up from being a hypocrite and just says: “I show my thoughts differently” and if he is a true prodigy he might even experience and than say: “I even think differently altogether, to begin with”. Everyone will stone and ridicule, theorize and worship and eventually create a new furrow that would be able to contain that form of thought and expression. Thus eventually that aspect of infinity as well enters the temple of humanely acceptable definitions of “art” and if the artist is still alive he might even be the one to name that new aspect.

Closure

All this I have said; because of my insecurities I have patronized and because of my embarrassment I have pretended. After all, I somewhat still believe, that “art” has to be something smart intended for smart people. So writing this article was my way of showing you that I understand art and this book is my hesitated clapping.