Active Art

http://www.ru.org/81gablik.html

http://www.bockleygallery.com/css/american_beuys.html

The readings “The Nature of Beauty in Contemporary Art” by Suzi Gablik and "I Like America & America Likes Me" by David Levi Strauss both have similar arguments about art. Both authors seem to focus on art being involved in society and to try and bring issues to the publics attention.

The first author, Suzi Gablik, focused on the argument that art should move out of the museums and galleries and more into public society. She describes art as something that is isolated from society, where artists work in seclusion away from society and the only contact with public society is in the gallery and museum. She instead advocates that artist must work and interact within public society on an everyday basis. After reading this I agree that art must move out of its own separate world. Just think how many people actual make it to art museum each year. I know personally that I don’t know many people that have made it into a museum to see art this year. So art in that context is almost foreign to people I know and I’m sure they aren’t alone. So a more active and involved art world might make an impact on the society in which it is supposed to be influencing and involved in. Suzi Gablik advocates that art should be involve in society but also bring things like pressing issues to the attention of the public. She describes one artist’s project of bring the environment to peoples attention. Everyday the artist would go to the Rio Grande River and clean trash out of the river and write in a diary describing what she did and felt. Suzi Gablik describes this as a perfect example of art bringing light to an important issue. Though I feel that art must be more active and take on issues such as the environment, this example is something I don’t really feel is art itself. Sure someone could describe it as a performance or literary art, I would argue that it is more an act of activism rather then art. If she instead took the garbage and constructed a large sculpture and displayed it in a public space where it would trigger a reaction, it would be art. But just the act itself I wouldn’t count as art but it is a step in the right direction for art to be more active and bring the attention of the public to issues.

The second reading approaches art in a similar way. The author David Levi Strauss describes the work of the controversial artist Joseph Beuys. Joseph Beuys originally wouldn’t come to the United States due to the war in Vietnam. But once he arrived his work tried to alert America about how it has lost touch with nature. His work was a display in which he did different things with a coyote. The coyote has a lot of symbolism such as in Native American culture. This is why it was a perfect vessel to use to portray the concern over nature’s role in America. This is once again an artist trying to grab the attention of society to an issue that they feel is important to society. This was the message that both authors tried to argue is important for art in the future.