If Art was communicative…

it would be called Language and a degree in it would be offered through the English Department. But, visual art is not necessarily trying to tell you something. Leave that to Nike ads and stop signs. Or the propogandistic artifacts we designate as art. Modern art has the luxury of being considered unto itself, due to the invention of the museum, and so it follows that art should try to be.

Categorizing art as a tool of communication reduces its effectiveness to esoterical dialogue. But what is it about Guernica that we empathize with, what makes it a great, moving work? Is it really because it is telling me, “This thing, this is sad”? The power of the Visual Arts to show, not tell, be, not describe, allows Picasso’s indignation and grief to reach us on a separate, non-intellectual level. It may or may not be emotional, but it is an intuitive rather than articulated kind of acceptance. I call it communion. A spiritual connection, even. And, ultimately, that is when Art comes to deserve all that capitalized glory and primo placement in the alphabet.

This is how I think art that doesn’t make sense intellectually or logically can still make sense. De Kooning’s Woman is a terrifying and bleak depiction of the archetypical female but at the same time celebratory and strangely beautiful. How do we straighten that out in our heads? The problem with school is that professors try to tell students to make sense in a way that is acceptably expositional. In a critique situation, it is far more difficult to discuss how the viewer is experiencing the piece than point out the work’s formal elements. And so it becomes more about indoctrination than accumulation of perspectives. A dangerous situation, I think.