Language and Relevance: Asserting Art’sUse-value

How is it that a country such as ours, built on the pioneering spirit and on its rugged individualism, envied world-over for its innovation and ingenuity, continues to spurn the fine artist to the extent it does?

The fact that in a land born from revolution, built through immigration, and enriched because of modernization, the fine artist could still remain as marginalized as he or she is, constitutes a major discrepancy within our national character.  How can we reconcile the existence of these two trends—one that seemingly affirms creativity as a form of subsistence, the other seemingly denouncing creativity as potentially deviant and dangerous?  Of course, depending on the nature of the status quo, any creative act can—and arguably should—represent both a welcomed necessity as well as a potential threat.  But why would the fine artist remain so widely viewed as being the latter rather than the former?  Oh, but if only the artist were granted even threatening status.  At least he or she would be deemed relevant.  Actually, a fate far worse and infinitely more disappointing befalls the lives of artists.  Theirs might be a life routinely dismissed, their work regarded with merely perfunctory interest by society as a whole.

Sadly enough and admittedly, we, as artists, are in part to blame for our own irrelevance in society.  By its nature, art is already a hermetic act, both in its meaning and in its making, so autobiographical is the content and isolating the execution.  However, when we look back over the great pioneering feats in history, the achievements valued the most are those that seem to migrate beyond the self of the maker to influence society as a whole.   The literal pioneering of the west gained ultimate judgment as a creative force for its expansion of a then-burgeoning nation.  Innovations—such as that of the telephone and the eventual creation of the Internet—serve a relevance for people in wide arrays of life.  The same could be said for breakthroughs in the areas of transportation and medicine—both assessed as relevant for their assumed use-value within society. 

The fact remains that, at its core and perhaps in its most pure, art remains a selfish endeavor, born from a need to express ideas that reside within. 

.  How successfully such ideas are communicated without almost seems an afterthought if an intention at all.  As personally exhilarating, rewarding, satisfying, therapeutic—oh, and lest I forget, necessary—making art can be for the artist, it also remains perilously self-indulgent. 

However, there is a way out of the self-inflicted trap—an escape that benefits both the art that one makes, not to mention the life—material and actual—the artist attempts to lead.  The way out of the trap is literal in every sense. 

Engagement with any creative practice, not to mention that of fine art, must include a public intention—an extension from self to other.  The necessary solitude that accompanies the artist—both in body and mind—can become its own place very quickly.  Connection to the outside, to something larger, is critical not only as means for reinvigorating the work, but also as means for protecting one’s very sanity.  Furthermore, by remaining accountable to some larger connection, the work becomes prone to a wider relevance, generating greater use-value for itself within the larger community.

I’ve always felt that, on the part of the artist, the intention needed to activate this sort of relevance must be a linguistic intention.  In general, connections among people are based upon communication.  Dialogue being a natural way of life, communication lies at the heart of most relationships.  As with anything in society, the meanings we generate only gain value when they are used as part of a dialogue, a larger discourse involving people.  Art is only deemed relevant the moment it becomes integrated as part of a larger conversation involving the lives of others.  Ironically enough, as a linguistic, art is naturally suited for such a discursive role.

Simply put, art is just, well...another language—visual as opposed to verbal, but still, a language all the same.  

As with any language, art bears a capacity both to represent and communicate meaning. 

So long as we, being artists, resist the temptation to lavish/languish in the merely self-indulgent properties of art making and, instead, exploit art's naturally discursive nature, we may yet risk making art that allows a greater sense of presence, both personal and societal.