Sunday, August 13, 2017

“Good art should be disturbing”.

I heard this said recently by an award winning author and found myself pondering the statement. In the past my art has at times been described as disturbing in that it left people feeling uncomfortable or at least my intention was that it should be so, but as to whether it was fit to be described as good I prefer to leave to others. I see very little in my artwork now that could be described as disturbing and yet I see it not as bad art but rather comfortable art. In fact there is much today that I would describe as being bad art and that at times disturbs me intensely if only for the fact that it is taking up valuable exhibition space and hard to come by funding. So can good art be something other than disturbing and what relevance does art therapy figure in all of this? Obviously art can impart the full breakfast of reactions from sheer joy, through rage to total depression but then perhaps I am reading the idea of disturbing wrongly, for disturbing read reaction, any reaction. Does my reaction to bad art as being disturbing now make it good art? To clarify my own idea of bad art maybe I should categorise anything that doesn’t draw my attention in any way and that I don’t even notice as bad art. Since my eye picks up on most things this would mean that there isn’t much out there in our world that is “bad”. Then how can that be true when I am so eager at times to criticise what I see as unsightly, an abomination, disgusting, horrific, a tragic waste of good materials. Ah! That must be my own personal taste kicking in and that along with all forms of criticism has no place in art, for even if only one person reacts in any way shape or form to that art then it must be good art. No? And if they find my art comfortable is that sufficient reaction to then say even if only in their eyes that it could be considered good? 

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