Bring Beauty Back

Art nowadays, and for quite some time, has been purged from sensuality. Popular culture, naturally, overcompensates for that omission. It is almost as if both the artists and the public are bodiless heads. The art world is ruled by an inescapable and implacable intellect. It has become utterly cryptic and antisocial. By taking into consideration the fact that art since its birth as well as during almost all of its course has been inextricably linked to the aesthetic, it is plausible to say that art has ceased to exist. 

Let me tell you a secret: art is kept in the museums. And even if, by exception, any art would be produced today, it should be left to time to determine whether it deserves a place in the museum. All it has become is a hybrid of play and activism. An amusement for the artist as well as the viewer, embedded with ideas, and an act important in itself, that is supposed to bring about social change. There is nothing wrong with art being embedded with ideas, as long as it is visually independent, as it can stand on its own. The art that is prevalent today and has been for several decades cannot exist without the theory, its theory. Being self-explanatory is irrelevant to this art. Moreover, both the artist that produces it and the viewer that consumes it take pride in its ambiguity. It is as if they are members of the same exclusive cult, of which the critic is the high priest, the artist is the cleric and the viewer is the believer.

In modern societies we live inside our heads, and we are unaware of it. To value beauty in art again, first of all, we need to be conscious of that tendency. All that is needed, then, is to reevaluate our priorities regarding art, in its production, its consumption, and its theory. It would, thus, be possible to reconnect with quintessential art. Art that is viscerally beautiful, not cerebrally useful. If only it were possible to bring beauty back, to bring art back...