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Does Art Open Minds?

James David wrote this post at 1:05 pm on February 22nd, 2008.

John Robertson’s work helps him clarify his thinking about political issues; he’s not out to change your mind. Informed by Susan Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others, he finds that images might move one to sympathy, but are impotent in moving one to action. It’s a question fundamental to how we proceed with our work, and one we’ve briefly addressed before. Now, though, we’d like to hear from you.

In discussion with John, I asked whether he’d be willing to have us do a feature on his piece, below, that asks whether art opens minds.

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For the next week, the floor is yours. We’ll return with a summary of your thoughts on Friday, February 29, and will be back to regular postings in March. So, what do you think - does art open minds?

Discuss (4)

#1 posted by John, February 24, 2008 10:03 pm

I think it does. As a designer it is my hope that our work opens minds and reflects an issue in a tangible way, or at the very least express an issue in a light that helps promote understanding.

What I do not believe is that art can change a mind. Open-mindedness can bring about understanding and acceptance, which can facilitate change.

I believe we need to all assume that our work can open minds and give of ourselves if we really hope to achieve open-mindedness.

This is something I’ve often thought about. I think art can definitely open minds, but in terms of reaching a broader group of people, “art” tends to attract a certain type of individual. One who leans more towards the intellectual side of things.

Susan Sontag argues that you can never express pain, at least not through [spoken]language. She writes that you will never be able to comprehend the pain of another, and in witnessing it, you begin to doubt the pain of the other person.

I tend to agree. I’ve been trying to figure out what it is that makes a person react. Is it feeling sympathy? Do you have to feel pain or suffering to be motivated by it?

I think art can open minds, but it is design that raises awareness. It takes more than a poignant moving image to create change.

John - Agreed, whether art can open minds is a different question than whether we can change minds with our work. What do you think of Cat’s point that art might open minds, and design (with its more purposed and directed problem-solving) might have more power to change things?

Cat - I just finished reading “Regarding the Pain of Others,” which, admittedly, is my first encounter with Sontag. She argued there that images will move us to sympathy, but not necessarily action, and that the artist’s intentions matter little in our consideration of the image.

The point that art “tends to attract a certain type of individual. One who leans more towards the intellectual side of things” brings up the idea of community building. Can art serve to change things by gathering and inspiring a group of like-minded folks?

I’ve painted a number of paintings for a variety of causes and create a lot of political art. All it is - is “preaching to the choir”. Others are not moved by it. Although I am successful as an artist selling paintings “off the easel” I rarely have an opportunity to show my political work unless an individual who’s cause I am supporting finds a use for an individual piece. There is nobody rallying around a painting or photograph – The use of a symbol is different – an example of that is a flag or cross. But it is not the image itself (the flag or cross) but what it symbolizes or stands for – country, religion etc. that moves a person to action. I think that people only react to the art already have a personal connection to the concept and then the image may call them to action.

An example of this is that for a number of years I’ve painted banners for (CROP) Hunger Walks in the community. The banners hang in prominent places. I paint them because I had a brother who was homeless (he disappeared in his early twenty’s and (as I found out a number of years later ) lived and died on the street. He was fed by shelters and food banks. I paint the banners to support a food bank. People who may have wanted to support the homeless but did not know an easy way to do so now has information that raises their awareness of a way to help. But their empathy was already there – and now they have a way to take action.

So the answer is yes to the question “Can art serve to change things by gathering and inspiring a group of like-minded folks”

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