Sunday, January 24, 2010

ART AND SOCIETY



Art as we all know, has evolved greatly throughout the years and in my opinion, has inevitably become an integral part of society today.

Society has several aspects such as the "Arts and Entertainment", "Business, Science and Technology", "Communication and Media", "Disadvantaged and Marginalized", "Education and School", "Family and Home", and "Government and Leadership".
Arts and Entertainment

The Arts is a broad subdivision of culture, composed of many disciplines. It is a broader term than "Art" which mainly refers only to the visual arts. Instead, it encompasses art, literature, performing arts (music, dance, drama etc.) and film.

Entertainment is the amusement or diversion provided by people, especially performers. It is a form of activity or stunt that engages and captures the attention of people, hence, entertaining them.

As we can see from the above definitions, Art is evidently present in this sector and probably even the most crucial ingredient in both areas. It is the source of creavity that creates the "Art" in "Arts" (hope that made sense) and exists in entertainment (haha, sorry, kind of lame here). Nonetheless, we can see that Art naturally plays a part in this area. Art, Arts and Entertainment all revolve around each other, without Art, there would be not Arts and without Arts, there would be no form of entertainment.
Business, Science and Techonlogy
Business refers to the industrial or commercial enterprise and the people who constitute it. It is acitivity of providing goods and services and where there are like financial transactions etc.
In relations to Art, my opinion is that Art can sometimes be used as business transactions. For example, art itself is a business, there are like shops around selling paintings or art stuff. Also, especially regarding the "high society" people, there's like a whole other world out there where famous artworks are being bidded for or even traded for. Art collectors which are basically narrowed down to the really really rich people fork out like millions to get artworks like Damien Hirst's pieces!

For Science and Technology, it is probably one of the most evident sectors that is rapidly growing and influencing society. It has allowed several developments in the medical, media, transportation, infrastructure areas etc.

Now, to many, Science and Technology may be worlds apart, while one relies on logic and the other on creativity and imagination, this is definitely proven to not be true as seen several artists works such as Nam June Paik or Bill Viola's work! Science and Technology together with Art run along such a fine line, as S & T develops, we can see that Art follows suit. In the past, video installations or TV installations could not be created. Take for example, the Cathode ray tubes used in heaven and earth by Bill and Viola was only made possible thanks to the advancements in S & T and the artistic manipulations of it by the artist.

Communications and Media

Communications refer to the audio interations between people and how we relate to one another through speech or conveying messages to each other. Media is like a channel where these messages can be conveyed or broadcasted.

In my opinion, Communications is the act of sending information from one thing or person to another. Regarding Art, communication is needed, be it the communication between the art and viewer or art and society, communication is crucial. Firstly, for an artwork to create an impact on the viewers, the artist has to be able to convey the message behind it to the viewer through this "invisible communication" which to me, is the viewer's interpretation. Secondly, for art and society, we can see from the Singpost event that communication is crucial for Art to gain acceptance from society.

The Media is a channel of communication. In society, Media has grown to be highly dependent on technology which can be seen through the use of the television, radio, computer etc. It is a form where ideologies and messages are being sent out to the public. As seen from Nam June Paik, his works are highly revolved around the Media where he shows us how dependent we have become on it through works like the "Techno Buddha" etc. Also, Art is pretty evident in the media which can be seen through the use of creativty and expressive/ artistic forms used in advertisements or posters.

Disadvantaged and Marginalized
The Disadvantaged and Marginalized in society are people like those handicapped, mentally disbaled, aged, racially or religiously discriminated, foreign workers etc. Also, Marginalized refers to those living on the borders on society, going unnoticed, and probably insignificant to many.
In the case of Art, i believed that Art has been used as a channel o raise the awareness of this group of people in society and even elevate their status. Such social artists are like Dede Eri Supria, Duane Hanson and even Chua Mia Tee who choose such people as their subject Matter. For Supria, he paints images are people who have been left behind and swept aside by urbanization, i.e. the poor. For Hanson, he picked common everday people who lived life by the sidelines like cleaners in the mall or even highlighted the idea of ageism. For Chua, he highlighted the blue collar people who worked hard to build up the infrastructures of society.
Education and School
Education has been to date, one of the most important and taken care of sectors in society. Especially in Singapore, Education is very significant and as we can see, many schools are goverment funded and education is compulsory up to the secondary level.
In the recent years, I believe that Art has been gaining more recognization in Schools and the Art education has improved greatly, take for example, art is a compulsory subject up to Secondary 2 (well, this was for my school and i think many others!) The Art education is really diversed where students are exposed to many forms of art such as photography, batik, painting, fashion, digital editting etc.Furthermore, when they move on to a higher level, take H2 art for example, students are exposed to SOVA where they learn the history and how to appreciate art. Also, schools as NAFA and LASELLE and the oncoming SOTA have been set up to provide a more wholesome Art education.
Family and Home
Family consists of a group of people, whether nuclear or extended who share a close bond, they provide emotional, psychological, financial support and moral guidance etc. The Home is the physical aspect of it which contains the family.
For Art, I believe that many influences have been derived from the family itself. Art is a mean of expressing one's self. Family is the mould that shapes the child's character from young and imparts several values onto him or her. Hence, I believe that many of the inspirations and meanings of the work are closely realted to the family. For example, William De Kooning was a kid who was i think afraid of his mother and saw her as some monstrous figure or something and thus, took it out through his artworks by painting women in disproportional terrorizing figrues, defacing them and not respecting them as his subject matter. On the other hand, we can also see artists like Chuck Close who painted his family members, like the one on Emma because he wanted to commit to memory those who mattered to him.
Government and Leadership
In today's society, the Government is the Leadership and has authority over almost every aspect of the country. They decide what goes and how things should be ran.
As mentioned above, Art has been gaining more recognition in the years to come and there are more Singaporean artists arising, even breaking out overseas and entering exhibitions, competitions etc. Also, we can see that Singapore has been having more and more exhibitions such as the Singapore Biennale 2008 where the public contemporary works were showcased.
Art in relation to the Leadership of the Government has to work hand it hand, without the Government's support, Art could slowly die off as it may be restricted and go off unnoticed. For example, Tang Da Wu did that performance art thing to indirectly make the government aware that they needed to give more support to the local art scene.

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