Last night I saw The Battle of Algiers, a movie from the 60's about the Algerian insurgency and the FLN's struggle for independence from the French in the 50's. Today I saw the fourth year drama students at Julliard put on the play Translations, a play about the English occupation of Northern Ireland in the 1830's, and afterwards saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Three completely different, but brilliant pieces of performance art, in their own distinct ways.
Seeing all of them led to some personal ruminations about the nature of art and what it means. I've had the conversation with plenty of people about "what is art?" particularly within the context of post-modernism. The standard line of any good art student these days is that art is whatever the artist wants it to be - that the onus is on the creator to determine whether their creation is art, commentary, or something else. Having recently visited the Guggenheim's Singular Forms exhibit (I wrote about this a while ago,) featuring such brilliantly conceived pieces as "plywood" (a piece of plywood leaning against a wall) I disagree. While the artist certainly has some say in determining what makes up art, I think the total neglect and disdain for the audience leaves something out of the artistic process.
I believe that art has to inspire in some way. That inspiration can take the form of introspection - a piece of art (like Eternal Sunshine) can be considered as such because it's difficult to walk away from watching it (unless you're a complete clod) without reevaluating some aspects of your own personal life. The take home message is that life is about experiences - and as much as we may want to wash away our own worst memories - it's impossible to do so without removing those things we'd like to hold on to. And it is better to have experienced sadness than nothing at all.
That can be a profound revelation - and it's due entirely to this movie. Other art forms can inspire the viewer to create something of their own, out of what may be a newfound appreciation for what a determined human being is capable of accomplishing. Michaelangelo's sistine chapel ceiling is one of these pieces - the subject matter itself is hardly revelatory; an account of the Judeo-Christian creation and a few other biblical stories. But the beauty, the sheer magnitude and the fact that it's on a ceiling are enough to make even someone like me who can barely draw a stick figure go out and buy a set of paints.
I've also been reflecting on my writing. While the expository style of writing that I do here may be at times amusing or educational (or interminable, you'll have to answer that for me) I don't think it's art. I seriously doubt anyone has read any of my journal entries and rushed out to feed homeless children or draft their own plan for the new world trade center. So I'm going to try my hand at creative writing. I have absolutely zero experience with it (with the minor exception of a couple of stories I wrote in the 7th and 8th grades) but it's something I've always wanted to try. Fortunately I have some very cool friends, and Wuvmonki as well as an off-site friend have agreed to start a little writer's club with me where we can critique each other's writing maybe twice a month. It should be, at the very least, educational.
I'm not entirely sure where to start - with exposition I usually see or hear something that sparks a train of thought in my head and I just move from there. That's probably why many of my journal entries have essentially no flow or coherence to them - that's how my mind works; one minute I'm thinking about presynaptic facilitation of neurotransmission, the next minute I'm pondering The Fonz from Happy Days, and the minute after that I'm remembering a wild dream of driving through the desert at night towards some underground pyramid with a big column of light coming out the top (that was three days ago, by the way.) I'm not sure if my mind was built for creating stories that make sense from beginning to end.
There's only one way to find out though.
Seeing all of them led to some personal ruminations about the nature of art and what it means. I've had the conversation with plenty of people about "what is art?" particularly within the context of post-modernism. The standard line of any good art student these days is that art is whatever the artist wants it to be - that the onus is on the creator to determine whether their creation is art, commentary, or something else. Having recently visited the Guggenheim's Singular Forms exhibit (I wrote about this a while ago,) featuring such brilliantly conceived pieces as "plywood" (a piece of plywood leaning against a wall) I disagree. While the artist certainly has some say in determining what makes up art, I think the total neglect and disdain for the audience leaves something out of the artistic process.
I believe that art has to inspire in some way. That inspiration can take the form of introspection - a piece of art (like Eternal Sunshine) can be considered as such because it's difficult to walk away from watching it (unless you're a complete clod) without reevaluating some aspects of your own personal life. The take home message is that life is about experiences - and as much as we may want to wash away our own worst memories - it's impossible to do so without removing those things we'd like to hold on to. And it is better to have experienced sadness than nothing at all.
That can be a profound revelation - and it's due entirely to this movie. Other art forms can inspire the viewer to create something of their own, out of what may be a newfound appreciation for what a determined human being is capable of accomplishing. Michaelangelo's sistine chapel ceiling is one of these pieces - the subject matter itself is hardly revelatory; an account of the Judeo-Christian creation and a few other biblical stories. But the beauty, the sheer magnitude and the fact that it's on a ceiling are enough to make even someone like me who can barely draw a stick figure go out and buy a set of paints.
I've also been reflecting on my writing. While the expository style of writing that I do here may be at times amusing or educational (or interminable, you'll have to answer that for me) I don't think it's art. I seriously doubt anyone has read any of my journal entries and rushed out to feed homeless children or draft their own plan for the new world trade center. So I'm going to try my hand at creative writing. I have absolutely zero experience with it (with the minor exception of a couple of stories I wrote in the 7th and 8th grades) but it's something I've always wanted to try. Fortunately I have some very cool friends, and Wuvmonki as well as an off-site friend have agreed to start a little writer's club with me where we can critique each other's writing maybe twice a month. It should be, at the very least, educational.
I'm not entirely sure where to start - with exposition I usually see or hear something that sparks a train of thought in my head and I just move from there. That's probably why many of my journal entries have essentially no flow or coherence to them - that's how my mind works; one minute I'm thinking about presynaptic facilitation of neurotransmission, the next minute I'm pondering The Fonz from Happy Days, and the minute after that I'm remembering a wild dream of driving through the desert at night towards some underground pyramid with a big column of light coming out the top (that was three days ago, by the way.) I'm not sure if my mind was built for creating stories that make sense from beginning to end.
There's only one way to find out though.
VIEW 16 of 16 COMMENTS
and it applies to most forms of art - i don't understand music, have the most basic appreciation of film and writing ...
i think it's so important & so human - but it always seems really alien to me.