Is art really that confusing?
I planned to meet up with my friend the other day and instead of our usual “chat at a coffee shop” meet, I suggested we go to several art galleries and see what’s going on. Her reply was (I’m paraphrasing/translating) “I’m so sorry, I don’t think I’m educated enough to be able to understand art. I’ll just stand there staring at them.”
That reply hit me like a bus.
We’re still at a stage in art where it only belongs to a certain, intellectually trained individuals. Which is strange because this friend of mine has a master’s degree, where as I don’t even have my bachelor’s yet. On paper, she’s smart and as I talked to her about some of the artwork I did see in Jogja, she understood. That means she’s not as uneducated about art as she thought.
This is one of the things that I’m trying to change, though I’m not sure how to go about it yet other than to keep writing about art as accessibly as possible. I try not to use big words as much as I can, and when I do have to, I try to contextualize or define it. I follow a YouTuber that I think is doing a pretty good job of making art more accessible. (I’m not always a big fan of her delivery or agree with her opinion, but she generally does a good job of explaining art that’s not overly complicated.)
A few years ago I worked with an art gallery that also has a blog. One of the topics I wrote for that blog was ongoing/upcoming exhibitions, which means I had to read a lot of press releases and announcements. The amount of supplemental materials that felt like I had to have a PhD in order to understand is astounding. I sometimes had to do extra research and read statements over and over again just so that I can understand what the hell they were trying to say.
Look, it’s fine if a few were like this. Some art really are meant by the artist to be seen by those who are, shall we say, a little bit more educated. But I know for a fact that artists aren’t all like that. Many want their art to be seen by everyone, no matter what their background is. So why don’t the words match up with that?
I really don’t think art is that complicated. Art is whatever we want it to be. If we want it to be complicated, then it is. If we want it to be simple, then sure. If we don’t understand it, then just let it be. If we do understand it, it could change our way of thinking permanently. That’s the beauty of art. It’s amorphous and refuses to settle into one single defineable thing.
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