“The big elephant in the room”.
It’s so natural to wonder about things, and to question them.
There are questions that are more comfortable to ask than others, though.
Regardless, all questions should be asked, less we are purposefully trying to stop progress.
However, there are questions that are so uncomfortable that they remained unasked, and end up becoming the “big elephant in the room”, pulling the attention away from what matters.
I think one of those such questions, is the one that wonders about the relevancy of art in our days.
If you ask me if art is still relevant, I wouldn’t be able to avoid thinking to myself that no art would equal destroying everything we humans stand for.
Regardless, the question should be addressed, and the big elephant, killed.
Art and hugs
Let me pose a question.
Have not you hugged someone you love, just because you felt like it?
Was not enough to say to the other person how much you love her, just with words. Was the hug necessary?
You probably would ask then what is wrong with hugging someone you love.
Are not hugs another way of saying “I love you” but without words? Why not to use them? You complain, and you would be justified in doing so.
I mean, you could argue that in this case the hug was, let’s call it, a medium by which your love was expressed outwardly.
Well, part of the human experience is the sentiment of creativity we all have inside.
In that sense, like hugs, art serves as another medium to express outwardly how it feels to be human.
Such sentiment needs to be acknowledge someway-somehow.
Because art is one of the love languages of creativity, and creativity is an essential component of what it means to be human, trying to get rid of art is like trying to become less of a human, and more of a beast.
Without an overarching and versatile medium like art to express outwardly the forces from within, we would not be able to neutralize and positively transform the feelings we all carry inside.
I believe such handicap would become so unbearable that frustration will push us to destroy much of what we stand for.
And tell me, if we destroy much of what we stand for, wouldn’t we be left being just a bunch of mass-particles walking around in circles on this thing you could by all means call a space rock?
Meaninglessness. That’s all I can see in such dried situation.
Let us destroy everything and finish with our misery once and for all then!
Hardly an outcome anyone would want, anyway…
Conclusion
The big elephant in the room was if art is still relevant.
Admittedly, art is not everything there is to the human experience, but neither is it nothing.
Art is one of the many tools the creative self in us uses to manifest itself against reality.
Through art the self can acknowledge itself and give meaning to its own existence.
At the end, and if not for anything else definitely out of necessity, you will end up experiencing art, creating art, or both.
PS. If you are wondering how art can help you figure out your real self, click here to read my other article "Art and Self-Expression".
Author: Jason Berberena
Visual artist and co-founder of Kreation Artzone