Art

Art. I thought its purpose is beauty, aesthetics. Not always, writes Sam Kahn. Once upon a time, it served another purpose:

“The presumption is that art must shock—that the violation of taboo is what gives art its charge; and that, actually, shock and the overturning of societal norms is art’s highest purpose.”

 

Art-as-subversion later turned into art-as-a-call-to-arms:

“Somewhere in the 19th century the notion develops that a work of art can be most effective when it’s ugly, when it deeply mirrors certain social realities and presents them in such a way that the audience is spurred to immediate action.”

This became the norm to such an extent that:

“Great art was linked to revolutionary politics, or at least to a certain revolutionary spirit, so that every significant work of art was assessed in large part by its ‘influence,’ which really meant its ability to serve as a wrecking ball to various social norms.”

So much so that:

“Works of art are always hailed as ‘revolutionary,’ ‘shattering,’ ‘innovative,’ ‘explosive,’ ‘incendiary,’ ‘provocative’.”

 

But when that happens long enough, one eventually runs out of way to shock.

“(Artists) were finding that the culture had gotten way ahead of them. And at the same time—and this was really unnerving to a certain type of artist—the culture revealed itself to be shameless, tawdry, and grotesque in ways that were supposed to be reserved for the avant-garde.” 


Inevitably:

“If everything is permitted, as Ivan Karamazov puts it, then license loses its power, shock is unavailing, and nothing is more charged than anything else.”

 

In a different era, while watching the reigning deity of the day - the TV - Calvin told Hobbes:

“Shock and titillate me! I’ve got money!”

Today, we don’t even need to pay to experience those emotions. We watch our YouTube, TikTok and Instagram feeds for free…

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nazis and the Physics Connection

When the Nazi government seized power, they started removing Jews from more and more positions, including the civil services, and the science departments of Germany. Those physicists who saw the writing on the wall fled to either UK (like Schrodinger) or the US (like Einstein), writes Adam Becker in What is Real?   The great physicist, Enrico Fermi, wasn’t a Jew. But when Mussolini aligned with Hitler, Fermi came under suspicion since his wife was a Jew. To make matters problematic, Mussolini’s new laws had made it illegal to take “more than pocket change” out of Italy. Neils Bohr broke an unwritten rule of the Nobel and told Fermi that he (Fermi) was in the running for the Nobel that year. Perhaps Fermi, should he win, could consider escaping from Stockholm with the prize money to start a new life? Fermi agreed, but it was touch and go – his wife’s passport had been confiscated, which meant she couldn’t come to Stockholm. Fermi managed to pull a few strings to get her passport...
Read more

Need for an Informed Aadhar Debate

As Aadhar increases in scope, supporters consider it necessary, says L.Viswanath : “We have Aadhaar getting linked to ration cards, NREGA payments, PAN cards, bank accounts, mobile SIMs, mid-day meals in schools, school admissions, university admissions…the list is endless. In a country plagued by corruption and bureaucratic inefficiency, the hope is that Aadhaar will help eliminate fraudulent identities, thereby saving the direct and indirect losses to the nation.” Conversely, opponents don’t cite concrete use-cases of how it might be abused apart from throwing phrases (“Orwellian state”) that sound scary. Until its opponents provide such details, supporters will win the argument by simply asking why Aadhar should be restricted only to subsidy schemes, as Subhashis Banerjee points out : “Admittedly there are substantial leakages in these schemes, but surely the need for de-duplication and strict record keeping and audits are as much, if not more, in the domains of tax co...
Read more

1991 - Liberalization

After the fall of Chandra Shekhar’s government, elections were called in 1991. During the campaign, Rajiv Gandhi got assassinated. That set off a sympathy wave – during the phases before Rajiv’s murder, the Congress won 50 of the 196 seats; post-that, it won 177 of 285 seats. The Congress now had enough seats (227) to try and form a coalition government. But who should head it? There was no obvious “heir” from the Family. With 100 of the 227 seats being from the south, PV Narasimha Rao (PV from here for short) had an edge, and he became the Prime Minister, writes Sanjaya Baru in 1991 .   The first order of business was, yes, that balance of payments crisis. PV’s first choice for Finance Minister was IG Patel, who had been Chandra Shekhar’s first choice too. Patel declined both PM’s offers to be the Finance Minister (FM). As PV continued his search, he found Manmohan Singh.   In his first address to the nation, in his deadpan manner, PV made a couple of statements that ...
Read more