A romantic idea indeed, because in the real world art will always have some kind of 'purpose' (or even several). The artist himself, or the curator, will have a narrative, a message; the buyer may consider art as an investment or may like to show off his wealth; the church used art to spread a gospel; or at times an interest groups may use art for political objectives, and so forth. Or, in Foucaultian terms,art, as an intrinsic part of society, will be determined to a high extent by existing power-relations. So, often art gets instrumentalised to communicate a certain message. There is no problem with that, except that it would be good at least to be explicit about it. Like in the case of the British philosopher Alain de Botton, who clearly aims at an exhibition of art 'for moral advancement':" I'll use a particular poet or particular music or art to get me through something. " In his view, culture should have a purpose. It is interesting that the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum decided to invite De Botton to act as guest curator in 2014. Apparently he already had such plans for the Tate Gallery, proposing that different works of art would be brought together in galleries on the basis of moral or ethic themes. In De Botton's view, art should help us with our lives, help us to acquire self-knowledge. There has been doubts and criticism on this plan, but in my view it will be a challenging experiment to look at art in a different manner. Usually curators may prepare an exhibition or display around an artist or group of artists, apparently without an explicite educative or moralistic purpose, solely on estetical grounds. I suggest that all this is just a matter of appearance, the curator always will have some objective in mind, always will try to communicate some kind of message.
BLOG29. The late 19th century romantics like Oscar Wilde and the modernists like Joyce and TS Eliot considered art to be a privileged sphere without a purpose. L'art pour l'art. In this view, art has no specified message. The work of art is considered to be autonomous, without a moral, didactical or utilitarian function. If a spectator is movedd by a work of art, it will be for purely esthetical reasons only….
A romantic idea indeed, because in the real world art will always have some kind of 'purpose' (or even several). The artist himself, or the curator, will have a narrative, a message; the buyer may consider art as an investment or may like to show off his wealth; the church used art to spread a gospel; or at times an interest groups may use art for political objectives, and so forth. Or, in Foucaultian terms,art, as an intrinsic part of society, will be determined to a high extent by existing power-relations. So, often art gets instrumentalised to communicate a certain message. There is no problem with that, except that it would be good at least to be explicit about it. Like in the case of the British philosopher Alain de Botton, who clearly aims at an exhibition of art 'for moral advancement':" I'll use a particular poet or particular music or art to get me through something. " In his view, culture should have a purpose. It is interesting that the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum decided to invite De Botton to act as guest curator in 2014. Apparently he already had such plans for the Tate Gallery, proposing that different works of art would be brought together in galleries on the basis of moral or ethic themes. In De Botton's view, art should help us with our lives, help us to acquire self-knowledge. There has been doubts and criticism on this plan, but in my view it will be a challenging experiment to look at art in a different manner. Usually curators may prepare an exhibition or display around an artist or group of artists, apparently without an explicite educative or moralistic purpose, solely on estetical grounds. I suggest that all this is just a matter of appearance, the curator always will have some objective in mind, always will try to communicate some kind of message.
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