It’s been suggested that the purpose of art is to make you think.

 I recently decided to make some live action art videos. I wanted to park a huge truck in the efficiency car parking spaces at Best Buy and film myself in a lounge chair while it idled. Maybe until The guys came out and kicked me off the property.

I suggested it on the internet, and a girl I didn’t know told me “That’s stupid. Art is supposed to make you think!” I didn’t respond to her, largely because there were too many directions I could go in, but two in particular.

The first is- This doesn’t make you think? It questions the necessity of these stupid signs! Don’t get me wrong- Best Buy has every right to put up these signs and insist that only people that drive ‘efficient’ vehicles should be allowed to park there, but I am allowed to have an opinion on the matter as well. And this will get people to think, even if it’s only thinking that I’m an idiot. A lot of the art out there seems to fall into that category. It seems to be trying to make a point, with that point acting to make people mad, but it seems that the only acceptable points are the ones that question traditional society. Otherwise it’s just stupid.

It’s ironic. For the most part, the culture that people are aware of- the accepted culture- born in large part from television, music and movies, accepts and celebrates the ‘let’s make a statement’ art as long as it agrees with the culture of popular sentiment. And it usually does.

Anytime someone complains about a piece like Piss Christ, (where Andres Serrano took a picture of a crucifix submerged in his own urine) that someone is portrayed as an unenlightened neanderthal. If someone makes a piece questioning the religion of the culture (Earth Worship, Sex Worship, Government Worship) or one celebrating something traditional- like family or God, they are seen as the neanderthal.

Part of the reason I’ve been pondering this is the second reason.

Whatever happened to art that’s nice to look at? Why must it be accepted that a nice Renaissance or Romantic era style painting made today would be kitsch? Marina Abramovic made a piece called Art Must be Beautiful, Artist Must be Beautiful It questions to notion of art being nice to look at- but now it seems to be that if it is nice, it’s considered junk. Not to mention the afore mentioned values!

A lot of people want something nice to put in their houses. They are derided and looked down upon on record by people such as Clement Greenberg in his vastly misguided essay Avant Garde and Kitsch. This is hypocrisy, in my opinion. It’s arrogant- people complaining about how their art isn’t accepted (even though it is) and putting down art they don’t agree with.

A recent example of this is Jon McNaughton’s painting The Forgotten Man. It depicts Obama standing on the constitution. It’s beautiful to look at, and get’s a point across. It’s considered controversial. One comment was “This guy is a right wing christian extremist who has no idea or desire to be historically accurate” “When the Bush/Cheney administration pushed the “Patriot Act” through Congress and Bush signed it into law why didn’t McNaughton do a picture of them trampling the Constitution.” He also has several paintings depicting God. Beautiful paintings at that.

I think we need more of this- after all, these are the paintings that challenge society.