my cousin the artist

I tell my cousin the artist that art is dead.  And that we have killed it.  Us with our steely, truthy knives and functionality.  My cousin the artist always tells me what art is when i forget, but now he doesn’t have an answer.

He just sort of smirks at me, well maybe half smirk, half ‘you-are-destroying-the-world’.

Okay, i admit, maybe i’m being a bit antagonistic.

Still the half “you’re crazy” / “you’ll kill us all” look.

Isn’t art the reflection of the values of a society!?! I insist he answer…

None can deny the correlations between the rise of atonality and post world war 2 social angst, the Greek love of forms reflected in sculpture.  What kind of art does a society that values bare bones efficiency deserve?  We have no use for art, and not that that’s a bad thing (have you heard of microsoft songsmith?).

He nods a bit now.  I must have hit a chord.

If art is dead, who will hold up the lantern and point toward a future for those pitiful few still clinging to beauty as a drowning man clings to a oar when his canoe sinks.  What will become of the artist?

At this he stares at me with the excitement  of a prisoner who really cant believe his freedom.

Artists never die, and nor does art, he says simply.  They just change hats.

~ by zimmermusic on January 24, 2009.