Why art is important | Katerina Gregos | TEDxGhent

you I must confess I feel a little bit like Little Miss Sunshine after all these wonderful presentations I'm standing here on this empty stage I have no slides no music no PowerPoint and I'm sitting here with my cards with a speech I didn't memorize but in any case I really hope to inspire you to reflect more on the important role that art has to play in society and to do so without images which is something very very difficult for someone on my vocation all art is quite useless wrote Oscar Wilde in his preface the Picture of Dorian Gray it goes without saying that his Bowmore are always quite tongue-in-cheek but what I want to draw your attention to here is the word quite it indicates that declaring art as utterly useless was a step too far even for Wilde how to better explain then that art is something of an unnecessary necessity imagine for a moment a world without art and culture without music without cinema without dance opera literature poetry that world would be a very very dull place devoid of imagination the one thing that distinguishes us as human beings from other species without art the banality of reality would be intolerable or to paraphrase Nietzsche we have art in order not to perish from the truth what I want to talk about today is the role of contemporary art in society why is that important and I'm not talking here about the one percent of the art world the handful of artists selling for millions of dollars two billion billionaire oligarchs which is a very tiny minority of what constitutes the art world but about the art that is engaged with society at large and engaging also with the key issues that affect us all today because that is the art that matters today more and more artists are inspired by reality than by the formal properties of that reality as we know them colors shapes beauty in today's complex world I believe that art for art's sake is insufficient it is the importance of another kind of art that I would like to talk about and this is what we call socially and politically engaged art artists working in this realm the realm of the socio-political use different media to express themselves from traditional media like sculpture and painting to film video performance and installation to deal with key questions such as democracy civil and human rights capitalism the economy migration and mobility the environment and the Commons and a whole host of such issues they strive to provide a counterpoint to the prevailing images of power and also to the stereotypes that are fed to us by the media since the time of the Enlightenment art has a very long history of engagement with the political art is in a sense political as it is about a person's views and freedom to act freedom to express themselves so art is always about taking a position there have been moments in history where art was put to the service of politics and society in a program in which the gap between the two was temporarily bridged one can immediately think of example of the Russian avant-garde but this effect has been always very hard to pinpoint and to quantify and times have changed so that what does art do what can it do and why is it important the fact of the matter is that it is very very difficult to pigeonhole and categorize what exactly art is and how it functions that is its beauty and that is its ungraspable value for want of a better word it is impossible to both quantify and qualify how art affects those you see it because it works in mysterious latent and very subtle ways that's why it's always such an uphill struggle to convince politicians of arts funding to convince them that the value that is the importance the significance and the merit of art cannot be judged by popular consensus and numbers alone and this is because art allows for something that cannot be defined therefore one can never predict the ways in which it will affect people change people's minds or influence their subsequent behavior as such it's a subtle power that changes the world one perception at a time and that is why art is very often seen and rightly so as a threat by the powers that be the British artist Antony Gormley began by defining art as follows art is about one person's expectation of and their use of their own freedom to act art is optimistic because it makes a person it makes a statement that one person can change the world even if that world exists on a tiny piece of paper five by seven inches art as an act of shared communication is in a small way saying I make the world I don't simply inherit it in making this world what does art do then art can change the way we think it can crack open cemented opinions and it challenges the given it looks at the world with a critical eye it opens up horizons but beyond those which are familiar to us it challenges standardised or problematic views of the world it exposes that which is often hidden under the carpet it reaches further than the accepted and the known and beyond the inevitability that we have been told we cannot escape art functions is the conscience of society the best art should ask you what you think prompt you to ask questions and put you into doubt ah testifies to the power of the human imagination the unique capacity of humans to project to dream and to reflect on things not only as they are but as they could or should be in a world driven by popular consensus including for example the homogenization of globalization and the general dominance of conservative values art advocates difference and gives voice to the other with a capital o it highlights important ideas problems and issues that are sidelined or silenced due to political or economic interests art functions as the barometer of society as a moral and intellectual resistance and as a friend of mine the south african artist kendall gear says art shakes the tree and then all the monkeys fall out ah doesn't change the world on a macro level it changes the world on a micro level in that sense its importance cannot be measured art changes things in very subtle ways it is a form of soft power artists themselves are a kind of free-floating intelligence independently operating untied individuals who are free of the normative thinking of their environment and are able to act independently of social or class realities art can foster dialogue reconciliation engagement solidarity connectivity and understanding of those with opposing views I'm convinced that if more people engage with it the world would be a much better place in that sense art should also have a much more important place in school curriculums and education artistic imagination and creativity are not added bonuses for society they're not the icing on the cake they are integral to the human spirit and to human aspirations an essential part of what makes us human art thinks about the world in its current state and it can reimagine the world as it should be more importantly art is the last front here of unregulated free expression which is particularly important at a time when the Commons public space and information are increasingly being privatized and regulated by the neoliberal order in that sense art is born of and advocates freedom artists always see a world full of opportunities chances potential possibilities and prospects their ability to go beyond the possible and into the imaginable should be an example and an inspiration for us all and as I started with Oscar Wilde I'd also like to finish with him no great artist sees things as they really are if he did you would cease to be an artist open your eyes to art and surprise yourself thank

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 420,882

Rating: 4.7806988 out of 5

Keywords: Belgium, TEDxTalks, ted, tedx talk, Art, tedx talks, Arts & Crafts, tedx, ted talk, English, ted talks, ted x

Id: UPk56BR1Cmk

Length: 10min 2sec (602 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 02 2014