Undefining Art
The Pakistani artist, Mehr Afroze, said in an interview, art is
not what you do but an artist is what you become. A journalist, a doctor, an inventor, a
philosopher, a sufi, a poet or an artist, once they have adopted a certain
path, will forever see the world and its events through that prism. At the site
of a road accident, the doctor will immediately see to the injured, a policeman
will collect evidence, the journalist will investigate the story, a poet will
find words to express his emotions, and an artist will make a visual
impression.
Is art a way of being, of thinking or a profession? The word, professional, started as a vow
from the Latin “professus” – to profess one’s skill to others. From the early 20th C, the word, professional,
came to be linked with an economically rewarded occupation.
Should a poet who composes for his diary or a few friends, not be recognized
a s a poet until he has published or presented his kalaam in a mushaira? Is my mother, who has been painting for the
last 20 years , but has never exhibited her work, not an artist?
Sometimes artists are only known for one work, musicians for one
song . Andy Warhol believed “everybody
only does one painting anyway”. We chose to remember Leonardo Da Vinci as an artist rather than an inventor although he produced only
15 paintings and hundreds of inventions. Arthur Rimbaud, 19 C French poet, abandoned
poetry at the age of 21. His six year career became highly influential in
French literature. Bashir Mirza’s real contribution to Pakistani art was his
“Lonely Girl” series of the 70’s.
The Art Gallery as an architectural space was established by Sir
John Soane for the Dulwich Picture Gallery in 1817. The format of
interconnected rooms with uninterrupted wall space continues to define the art
gallery and contributes to the perception of art as an object to be potentially
purchased.
From its earliest beginnings, Art was intended as experience rather than an object, whether a carving on
ritualistic objects, the walls of a church, depiction of a deity in a temple ,
or to create a sense of awe and the presence of power in palace halls. In our times, land artists, performance and
installation or graffiti artists and the
many ephemeral public art events, recall the role of art as experience, but
they are still pressured into exhibiting documentation of these in art
galleries in the form of photographs, videos or documents in order to earn
recognition as artist.
Howard Becker in his paper
“Art as Collective Action” asks “
how little of the activity necessary for the art can a person do and still
claim the title of artist?” A social consensus,
agreed by the artist, the audience and the arbiter, is required and “Art worlds differ in how
they allocate the honorofic title of artist and in the mechanisms by which they
choose who gets it and who doesn’t” . Sudden
changes are considered an attack, a moral affront, on audiences and arbiters
until the changes themselves become conventions.
Evelyn
Payne Hatcher in her book “Art as Culture: An Introduction to the Anthropology
of Art” takes a broader look at the social contexts of art production in
various cultures. For Navajo Indians, sand painting is a spiritual activity where
the process of making is important and not the product which is destroyed as
soon as it is completed. In other cultures art is woven with dress, ritual, the
body itself. Is art intended as “spectacle”
or expression of social, spiritual and aesthetic experience?
Durriya
Kazi
January
22, 2019
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