As a final project focus for ELC 698, and as an ongoing practice of lived philosophy, I pose the basic question:
WHAT IS ART?
As a result of my research, personal experiences and participation in class discussions throughout the Fall 2011 semester, I consistently return to notions of art as expressions and documentations of lived experience that reflect our common concerns as existential beings - as such, the human condition. Each of us connects to art and aesthetics in various and multiple ways: as art maker, viewer, listener and reflective thinker in our personal and shared life journeys. Sometimes the experience is consciously intentional and other times not. Nonetheless, I contend that art, in its many guises, infiltrates our lives. At best, living with artful mindfulness enables engagement with "the moment" on a more profound and visceral level, whether that moment be available in a traditional gallery or on a nature walk. I have experienced that kind of artful moment in both places this semester, realizing that, for me, the artful moment is always a philosophical moment in which I consider my place in the world relative to that which the artist or nature is expressing. From art galleries to "spoken art" poetry jams, to a modern dance workshop, lectures, presentations, readings and more, within each space of creativity emerges the subjectivity of both the artist and myself. The object is the unique vehicle through which and about which we express our humanity, and this is what interests me the most: the meanings that inspire and inform the creative undertaking and its processes.
Following is a quote from an MFA student at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA) that articulates the importance of meaning relative to his own art making and to his view of the world as an artist and as an existential being:
0+0=∞
Out of no meaning, comes meaning. The sensibility in which we live says that we are beings with inherent meaning and everything that we do, has some sort of importance. This importance is man-made. Man-made importance holds its place due to our being situated within the human condition and is that which we cannot step out of.
Therefore, meaning is real because we hold true that we are real. Out of nothing, comes everything.
Therefore, meaning is real because we hold true that we are real. Out of nothing, comes everything.
Light is nothingness
Importance is man-made
Nothing, everything
Reference: Jeremy Uglow, MFA 2012, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, from Thesis Draft, 2011
This post ends by circling back to the original question/thesis of this blog project:
"What is art?" And further, how is art linked to an existential, philosophically-driven life? Students (possibly others) at an "Open House" event at Yale University responded to the classic question. For a great many of them, responses link art making to the human condition, the need to express meaning subjectively as well as to critique the culture of the times.
Click on this link:
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