Defining the Power of Art

An image of shoes worn by Holocaust victims at concentration camps. 

Not beautiful. 

Definitely art. 

Weekly Question: Does art have to be beautiful?

My Answer: No.

            My ratiocination behind such definite expostulation can be found in my previous posts, Defining Art and Defining Beauty. While I will not provide excess nimiety on the subject (for I believe it would simply be nugatory), I will attempt to propose and tackle a question that I feel naturally precedes such a declaration—What is the point of art if not for euthenics?

Art has the power to move you; to infiltrate your body, find the most primal drip that flows from your river id, and stretch it into a tempestuous ocean of raw energy that surges through your veins.  Art forces you feel. The purist art will take you as its victim.

            The fallacy that art must encompass (or even reference) beauty is not only ignominiously simplistic; it is demeaning. With the ability to capture a moment, conquer a mind, change an opinion, why should art be limited to beauty? Art is humbly omnipresent and in a bold and constant nullibiety. We must not attempt to link it inextricably to any singular notion.

Defining Why Art Exists

          "¡No tome fotos!” the security woman snapped at me. She was too late though; I already took my shot. The photo is mostly a black and white blur, but it’s more than that to me. It’s a reminder that I was there—in Spain, at the Museo Reina Sofia, standing in front of the painting I had been drawn to since I was a little boy: “Guernica.”

            The museum is laid out like a suspense film. Each room leading up to “Guernica” is dedicated to Picasso’s sketches of a specific character in the painting. The Falling Woman Room. The Wounded Horse Room. The Weeping Woman with Child Room. The deeper I went, the more enveloped I became in the twisted and tortured scenes of the Spanish Civil War. Finally, there it was: 11.5-by-25.6 feet. It was staring at me. I felt hollow looking back at it. Small and helpless and hollow. I had seen the image a hundred times before, but never had it made such an impact. All the smaller vignettes were now suddenly together in one overwhelmingly large brutal story. It was cacophony visualized. It was a big, ugly, gasping-for-breath piece of art, and as I stood before it, I thought to myself, “This is why art exists.”

Defining Beauty

Anna Wintour is one of the most powerful people in the world. Her multi-billion dollar empire and infamous, unwavering equanimity aside, she has the power to define beauty. Through her quotidian exigence, she has transformed a magazine into a bible, and in doing so, she has given her personal opinion ultimate legitimacy. Although I do have the utmost veneration for Wintour, I am disinclined to acquiesce with the societal fallacy that she possesses some sort of absolute truth regarding the idea of beauty in the fashion industry. As John Locke wrote, “The law of nature being unwritten, and so nowhere to be found but in the minds of men, they who through passion or interest shall miscite or misapply it cannot so easily by convicted of their mistake where there is no established judge.” Whether one views Wintour as artistically enlightened or not, it is her dominance over an industry and a culture that allows her to define beauty in her monthly exhibition, Vogue.

Writers and artists may give birth to ideas, but editors and curators select the status quo.

Proposed Exhibition: Pure Beauty

Pieces:

            Campbell's Soup Can                        The Fountain 

                   Andy Warhol                             Marcel Duchamp

                                                 Pure Beauty

                                               John Baldessari

Proposed argument: Pure beauty is only achievable through minimalism. From Warhol’s pop art, to Duchamp’s dada readymade, to Baldessari’s plain text, there is a refinement and synthesis of artistic perfection. Art is a question of concept, not of skill.

Of course I do not believe the proposed argument, but it is a testament to the power that an exhibition has to incite delusion in the minds of its audience.