Author, educator, and consultant Eric Booth has grown weary of the disconnects and bickering within the many fields of art — by discipline, by professional level, by community, by distribution channel, by artistic intent. So, in this compelling essay, he suggests a renewed emphasis on the common core of artistic endeavor — the ‘grand unifying theory’ that crosses these boundaries and surrounds them, as well.
To his eye, that core is ‘connection’ — or the many connections made manifest by artistic expression and experience. Says he:
This fundamental act of art occurs when we find the right word in a
poem or the dance move that captures what we know and cannot say. We
spark the arts connection when we enter a “world” made by someone else
(a work of art, a spoken image, a story, an eloquent gesture) and find
a personally relevant connection inside it. We fire the art connection
when we pick just the right song to play for a suffering friend and
when we listen deeply to a friend’s story and connect to its unspoken
core. We slip into the physics of art when we resonate inside with the
note just played, when we experience a sense of eternity under a night
sky.
Further, he suggests that exploring the common core of artistic endeavor, rather than the myriad distinctions and categorizations, pushes us toward essential questions we need to wrestle to make our work truly connected to our world:
What can we do, as believers in the power of the fundamental act of
creation, to align our actions, our creations, our organizations, our
intentions and interactions with everyone inside and outside the arts
to maximize that power? How can we create environments that
effectively, irresistibly support and nurture that power? What events
can we devise that are dedicated to that power, not merely to the
presentation of artworks that we hope will contain it for those few who
pay to attend?
Great questions. Let the wrestling begin!
In order to support this power in creativity we need to be conscious of our surroundings. We need to see it, taste it and celebrate it with our actions. Everyone has a desire to create yet few ever experience it or for that matter understand. People think creativity is about knowing how to draw and paint but it’s not really. For me it’s more important to live a creative life.
In schools we see sports as more important that art classes. For me that’s where the experience and awareness begins.
Museums, Galleries and art institutions should get more involved with the community. Governments and businesses should realize that Americas value innovation and creativity.
”In our modern world the artist is tempted to do stunts in order to attract attention. But the true task of an artist is to discover her or his relationship to the community, a community often in desperate need of the artist’s power to see the world anew.”
–Historian Page Smith, from the forward to Art in Other Places: At Work in America’s Community and Social Institutions.
A wonderful article, responsibly invoking the unifying urge of physics. But the Higgs particle in art of all kinds is not connection. It is meta-connection: evoking the human condition. Every great play and work of art tells me something about humanity that had not occurred to me before. (How music can do that so powerfully is bewildering to me.) What connects us is the human condition in all its variety, and each work of culture provides an inevitably partial reflection that enriches our entire lives.
What we fail to notice, I think, is that sports and the arts are the same thing! They work as metaphors for larger social experiences. They are processes by which young people are brought together in community to create, through their discipline, talents, and commitment, an experience that others can share, whether that something is a football game or a musical. We need to forge that connection, not fight it.
The impetus for the article, while well intentioned, describes the problem itself. A reductive marketing author speaking at a performing arts conference attended by arts advocates and practitioners from pseudo-corporate institutions.
The Quixotic desire to seek some ethereal theory is symptomatic of those who long ago gave up artistic creativity to boards, artistic choices to marketing departments, artistic adventure to grey-haired subscribers worldwide of limited tolerance but willing pocketbooks.
The artistic legacy of the 20th century is the institutionalization of art. Universities and “non-profit institutions” alike have commodified art to where what is new, what is canonical, what is original all mean the same thing: what is sellable. Whether training programs, arts education or in a “pick your package” subscription telemarketing riff.
The truth is, we have a unified theory of art. It is called Capital. There is not greater argument for this than asking what the Jim Collins does for a living, sir.
What a great exchange of ideas! Love the article and the quotes from Eric Booth. Also agree with the comments from Edwin Taylor on May 22nd, and with both concepts of connection and meta-connection. The artists in our midst are capturing the human experience, and through them, we are sharing it and making connection with others.
The comparison of art to sport is often made. When the Canadian government first offered a tax credit on enrollment fees for entering your child in sports, the outcry from the arts community across Canada contributed to an expansion of that tax credit to include dance, theatre and other artistic activities.
Re Andrew Tsao’s comments about the 20th century institutionalization of the arts, thankfully we’re done with that century. The emergence of a new level of community building that many art forms are inspiring these days is evident in my community. It could be the same in communities across North America, and around the world, for that matter. The next generation of young adult artists are creating a connectivity and a sense of community that we haven’t seen since the early fifties and the advent of tv. And they’re enrolling their own kids in art, dance, drama and music like never before, ensuring connectivity for our kids through the arts much like we relied on sport to do when it was all that was available.
In Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, our young arts community leaders (not our institutions) are leading the way. Our funding agencies, government agencies and academic institutions are starting to realize this, and the rules (and roles) are changing.
It’s a very interesting time in the human experience, and I for one, am not only thrilled to be living it, but also looking forward to reading the book, seeing the movie, hearing the songs and dancing the dances that are inspired by this instant in time we are all sharing. I think the answers to the questions posed in the second quote from Eric Booth are going to be coming from our young friends/students in the next year or two, if they’re not doing it already.
Thank you for the conversation and the opportunity to participate. I really enjoy this journal, and thank you Andrew, for your weekly efforts.