Art and Society

 

Romare Bearden, Quilting Time (1979)

            Is visual art or any art form meant for pleasure only?  Can artistic presentations be a venue for the philosophical or the prophetic to emphasize protest? 

            These are rhetorical questions to me since the obvious reply is “Yes!”  While Art for pleasure is not only legitimate but desirable given the need for delight in lives, I think that audiences satisfied with their own situations may not accept Art as either philosophical or as prophetic.  Why?  Because such Art may nudge an audience in an uncomfortable way as it pricks the conscience, or even if it just causes people to re-consider another look at the world; both could be a useless exercise as viewers reject it.

            Besides, if one is assured already of their understanding of the world, why would they want an art presentation that teaches otherwise?  For some it may be an eye-opener, a revelatory experience of a new outlook.  But for others it may be a sharp razor that cuts without healing—though I should add that healing takes place with humility.  In any case, there will be no winning of friends and influencing people that way; for an historical reference think of the plight of either Socrates or Jesus.

            Now, there’s no need to place an artist at the level of famous philosophers and religious teachers (though I would argue famous artists do inhabit the same heights), but like A Square in the story Flatland the artist does have the task of trying to communicate another vision of the world, or a vision of another world.  Often that means one is addressing those who only want the artist to affirm the status quo, and acting to the contrary will usually translate into some kind of trouble, minor or major.  Minor, in that the artist will find it challenging to help an audience along to a new understanding; major, in that others may threaten the artist.

            Western visual art offers many such artists.  Usually, people think of the Dada and Surrealist movements of the last century.  Going back another hundred or so years, one sees that Goya and Hogarth opposed conventional values in their work.  There are others as the Expressionists after WW1, but up until the 18^th and 19^th centuries most visual art reflects the patronage taste for gods and heroes as artistic forms of all kinds often were the media of the powerful.

            Eventually, a step into the working classes as a source was a new philosophical look at the world or, at least, new in the 18^th century. Today, we take for granted still life, landscape, and scenes of people in mundane chores, but that imagery was a break from the past.  Yes, there is a precedent for it in ancient villas and their decorative wall painting, in small figurines of workers, but directly confronting the viewer this way after more than a thousand years of angels, princesses, and knights marked a turn in thought.  A protest against the medieval landscape?  In part, yes, and it also was enthusiasm for the new way of understanding.

            So, it continues today in the work of many artists who react to the unfamiliar ways science informs us about the world, who watch a population struggle for their independence and rights, and who attempt to evaluate the cultural role of technology.  Big topics, topics that stretch an artist to the imaginative limit, and then Art becomes either an indicator of values or a call for change. 

 

Surrealism Online Exhibit

Today is the last day of the online show "Surrealism" on the website of the San Fernando Valley Arts and Cultural Center (whew!  easier to write SFVACC).  

The juror for the show was Seta Injeyan, herself a surrealist, and glad to have made entry with my drawing Yield of the Fall.  The exhibit went online May 16 so it has been up for a while though I believe SFVACC keeps these shows up online even after the end date.

If you wish to see the exhibit then here is the link: https://www.sfvacc.org/surrealism-2025.

Made in NY 2025

 

The Phantom of Liberty; mixed-media on panel, 36" x 24"

The jurors for the 2025 Made in NY exhibit selected one of my two entries, The Phantom of Liberty.  This is my third version of this concept juxtaposing two American icons, the Statue of Liberty and Fat Man, bookending a nuclear family on the edge of a nuclear disaster.

The usual competitive show, jurors David MacDonald and Sayward Schoonmaker had to sift through at least 460 artworks and they pared it down to 71.  That’s a 15% acceptance rate—whew!   While this is my fifth time out of ten tries I say yes, it’s tough to gain entry into this kind of exhibit.  Of course questions as “Does this mean that my rejected art is no good?” come to mind.  The obvious answer to the latter is an assured “no.”

MiNY is held at the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center annually in Auburn, NY and will be open to the public from March 29 to May 17.  Admission is $10 per person, while children under 12 are free.

 

Art as Salvation

         How can the visual arts, which often involve particular tricks of the eye, liberate one from illusion?   Is it an imposed burden that the visual arts simply do not need?  Does it become one more responsibility for the artist?  Both of these are possible but rather than take the negative way, though that would be worth exploring, I would like to take the enlightened road toward understanding visual art as salvation or liberation, as well as how it can lead to the future.

        Granted, the blare of popular culture that surrounds one with the currents of electronic devices may threaten to drown out the inner voice that struggles to survive.  Maybe it is not so much different now than it was before the electronic age, I don’t know, but I admit that I imagine that there was less imagery and noise before it than afterward.  And so, I think the need today for the visual arts and, yes, all the Arts, more than ever for humanity to gain true perspective.

        One way the visual arts, and of course any of the Arts, have done so is to present another view of the world or even a view of another world—however construed.  In both cases the viewer realizes another dimension of the world that either they did not consider or did not even know could be a viable approach to reality.  In this way visual art is able to break through boundaries of old thinking, even that which has been constructed over a long time. 

        Another way is that it can offer new sensitivities to beauty and the meaning of what is attractive, as well as show that which is rough or ugly may have aesthetic import that rivals that as to what is thought to have conventional allure.  This is something that the visual arts have done perhaps more than the other arts, in what pleases the eye may not always make for great visual art and may not also not make for a great society.  Manufactured elegance becomes trite, banal, and shallow.

        If the visual art engages a contemporary or universal issue, then that would be a direct way into the mind of the audience.  The prophetic or philosophical, along with the pleasure aspect, can move people to think in another way about the topic.  Of course, it may also re-affirm one to solidify their stance on it too, in contrast to the prophetic message.  But as one writer mentioned, the Arts are a sort of an early warning line as to the direction of a society, and it is better to heed the prophet than to stone them.

        And so that is the value of the visual arts; providing another way to comprehend the world as it challenges the complacency of the status quo, pricks at the aesthetic conscience, and converts the self-righteous into realization.  Pleasure, prophetic, and philosophical streams all combine to make for a forceful work of art so it becomes Art, never a monolithic standard but as a guide that points to the future open to the new possibilities of human existence.

33rd WNY Regional in Buffalo, NY

 

Hockey Night in Canada; pencil on paper, 24" x 36"

When you enter art as a candidate for an exhibit, you recognize that the odds are against you whether only 15%, 25%, or even upwards of 40% gain entry.

And if the juror selects one of them then that's good although if they choose both then that's even better!

This is what happened recently as the judge for the 33rd WNY regional, Gerald C. Mead of Buffalo State University, chose both of my drawings I entered. 

What does that mean?  Not sure, since I am certain that those works he did not choose were not bad at all.  In any case, a two-for-one show provides double the exposure.

One of them shown above, Hockey Night in Canada, is the larger version of an earlier, smaller drawing, as is the other drawing, The Grand Calculator.

The 33rd regional exhibit's opening reception is Friday, September 20, on 1 Linwood Avenue a the WNY Artists Group Gallery and closes on Friday, November 1.

 

It's the Fringe Festival AAG show!

The Arena Art Group presents another show in conjunction with the Fringe Festival at the Multi-Cultural Community Center in Rochester, NY from September 6-October 26.

The opening is Sunday, September 22, from 2-4 pm.   My drawing is one of those by about 20 other artists.  

The one caveat emptor is that the show is only accessible when there is an event at the MuCCC but as the Fringe Festival continues through for another month there will be opportunities.  

 

Expectation and Viewing Art

 

          Can visual art present an image that is not dramatic, or must it be dramatic?  I ask because it appears that many people view visual art expecting a dramatic meaning even when it is clear that the artist had other intentions. 

For instance, someone looking at a work by Red Grooms and scrutinizing it for deeper meaning other than the humor may be on to something…and may likely not.  Granted, Grooms’ works often do have a meaning a bit beyond the humor, but why isn’t the humor enough?  Humor can have depth as any comedian or satirist knows.

Another example is that of the performing arts; is every play going to be a drama?  Imagine a theater world where there were only dramas or, even better, imagine someone who attended plays always expecting a drama when a play is not.  They’re going to be both disappointed and puzzled.  I suppose they even may be upset, angry, that the play did not meet their expectations and blame the playwright for botching it, telling others that the play simply did not make sense.

Apply this to any other artistic venues as music, and it’s the same problem regardless of the genre.  If one anticipates a romantic ballad and hears a Bartok string quartet, or vice-versa, the music will come off as a dud.  Audience expectation also can be an issue as consider children, who may expect to hear Peter and the Wolf, and instead have to sit through a Mahler symphony for 1.5 hours.  I’m sure they won’t be pleased, just as the adult audience expecting a Mahler symphony will not be excited about Peter and the Wolf as a substitute.

But back to the visual arts.  Magritte’s painting of floating baguettes and wine glasses may point to a Christian eucharistic symbolism, but more likely it is about Magritte trying to show the common as uncommon.  Reading into the loaves and liquid as a metaphysical transformation of the mundane into the supernatural is a misdirected interpretation regardless of the relation of seeing the ordinary in an extraordinary way. 

So, this is the obstacle for many people who presume a dramatic understanding of visual art; they need to clear that out of their perceptive field of play. Why?  Because visual art, as any of the arts, may be dramatic, yes, but it also may be comedic, sad, romantic, mysterious, and even absurd.  It may be for the strictly formal aesthetic pleasure too.  Reading one’s expectation into art, however, will simply be a constraint on the viewer’s experience. 

 

Modern Works Exhibit at the Artists Group Gallery

 

The Western New York Artists Group is presenting its Modern Works show from March 29 - May 10.  The juror for this exhibition was Dana Murray Tyrrell, co-director at the Niagara Arts & Cultural Center.  Mr. Tyrrell selected both of my entries, Statistical Control and The Triumphant.

An excellent review of modern visual art by regional artists, if you are visiting in the city of Buffalo then consider taking a look at 1 Linwood Avenue.