What is it about art that polarises us so distinctly? The great Pablo Picasso said, “Art is a lie, that makes us see the truth.” Thus, perpetuating perhaps, the diversity of art, and its complexity.
Growing up, we do tend to see art as an escape, don’t we? As precious little of art mirrors life. Everything is exaggerated in our childish art, as things, objects, and life, are represented as bigger, better, stronger, more handsome, more beautiful, more colorful, because we want them to be, and simply because we can make it happen. Yes, it’s childish, but it also very clearly signposts what is important to us at that time. The slightly eccentric filmmaker, Tim Burton, in fact champions that we should not worry about how we should represent things, but how we see them, as being more essential to our wellbeing and personal development.
One thing that I have felt strongly about is the culture of art, and how it must empower those at its heart, or its seat. Visiting Florence, a couple of decades ago, I recall being taken with the confidence, almost arrogance of its people. But it really did feel like an arrogance with a smile, and nothing malevolent about it. In the very city, so artistically encouraged by the patronage of the Medici banking dynasty, so enriched by the likes of Da Vinci, Botticelli, Michaelangelo, and Brunelleschi. You can almost feel the artistic overtones, or kindlier, its ambience.
The Omani art scene has very different perspectives. For instance, exhibiting from London to Tokyo, Hassan Meer offers traditional themes, but with the fresh bright colours that are so ‘in’ today, distinctly Omani themed, in a clean, provocative, abstract style. Also globally recognised, Alia al Farsi draws her inspiration from her faith and heritage, to interpret the faces of today, spectral almost, yet so visually appealing. Others too, are finding their artistic ‘voices,’ the younger set asking questions through the contemporary media. Now whether that is so appealing or not, the jury is still out. But love it or not, it is certainly of, and inspired by, the Sultanate of Oman.
Kurt Vonnegut too was a pioneer, years ago, among what is now relatively common in the satirical realm, as someone who finds humor in critical expression. Becoming an art form today, Vonnegut interestingly wrote during his earliest days that the genuinely committed artist, whether musician, painter, sculptor, dancer, poet, or novelist, practices their calling not for fame or fortune, but to experience ‘becoming,’ to find out what is within, and what makes you grow. That may sound to some, inspirational, but to others, meaningless platitudes, and poles apart... but again, that’s art.
John Cage was a rather enigmatic art and music ‘theorist’ of the early 20th century, famous for a piece of music, with no music, entitled ‘4 minutes, 33 seconds.’ How? The performer sat at a piano, opened, and closed the keyboard, set his music sheet, turning the pages, and after the four minutes and 33 seconds, closed the piano and left the stage, leaving behind a confused, indignant audience, and in the process revealing Cage as a controversial, polarising (there’s that word again), musician.
Cage was unrepentant, saying “They thought only about the silence, not realising the music of the accidental sounds around them, like the wind stirring, leaves rustling as the blow along the road, the pitter-patter of the rain, the sound of the pages turning... they had missed the point. There is no silence, only music.” He pondered too the concept of art as a very intimate, and individual expression, explaining that no matter how many people begin with you artistically, you will always end up “completely alone.”
Maybe therein lies the path of the artist, and perhaps that explains why so many artists are temperamental, socially challenged, as unique, as different, and as polarizing, as debatable, as their art.
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