It’s been a topic of debate in art for as long as we've had records of – well– debate and art. Imagine what the first argument about it might have looked like, millions of years ago.
Og walks into a cave dragging some sort of saber-toothed whatever and catches Trog red-handed drawing a Neolithic hand turkey on the wall. Og asks Trog what it means, and from there the two launch into an intense, grunt-based debate over the meaning of art, which inevitably ends in one being beaten over the head with a blunt club.
The argument over whether art can exist for art’s sake is the kind of cyclical debate that occupied the minds of some of the greatest art buffs of all time, from Vasari to Gombrich. The question has been beaten like a dead horse because it’s one worth beating; if we forcefully attach greater meaning to art, does it lose that which makes it timeless, turning it into ephemeral junk? However, if we have art without meaning, what separates it from kitschy cat-themed motel décor?
This can go back and forth until faces turn blue, but on the local level at least, artists should be striving to tie their works into greater social themes in an effort to raise awareness or at least get people talking about certain issues.
The reality is that not everyone can put a dead shark in a tank or paint a soup can and call it the greatest work of contemporary art this century. That kind of artistic pretense is reserved only for those good enough at systematically convincing others of their genius, something of an “Emperor Without Clothes” kind of principle.
But in a community such as Centretown, the potential for artists to create tangible change amongst their neighbors is enormous. More importantly, this is the kind of place where if the message is strong enough, people might actually listen. Not to favour one cause over another, but the possibilities for change are limitless whether it be sparking chatter about mental health week and depression or challenging citizens to get up and support a charity of their choosing.
It’s not simply a matter of branding art with a hot poker and calling it this or that, but rather remembering that although art for the sake of art can exist in everyday life, it becomes truly powerful when it has the ability to leap out of its medium and touch something real. Artists should be coming to galleries armed with art that seeks a social change, that longs to delight and depose, something to wash away the dust of everyday life.
In this way, art ceases to be a stagnant, incestuous, inaccessible institution and gets back to its original purpose; to pinpoint in society the things which we see as beautiful or ugly and expose them to the world.