Praxis #2

Separating art from life is a colonialist project.

I'm imagining a dialogue between aesthetic sensibility and the emotional and cognitive process of interacting with materials. What's made Vs what happens in the making. I feel a tug from the future. Is it 'good'?

Why are certain forms of expression presented as superior? Why should we accept that dance is inferior to visual arts for example? I remember being a teacher and feeling confused by the lack of connection between the music and art department. As a musician and visual artist I wanted students to have the opportunity to think and play with sound and materials together. I get they are different in form but they are rooted in the same desire to give form and meaning to human experience and therefore make sense of our existence. It isn't helpful therefore to dislocate these symbiotic limbs of expression. What message are we sending that any 'subject' is separate from the other? That rational thinking trumps embodied ways of knowing?A separation of and disassociation from the senses serves no one... Or does it?

The Art World reflects the dominant social and political values of our capitalist society. It is controlled by elitist systems, upheld by galleries, art organisations, universities and the art 'heroes' who yield power, wealth and mysticism. These systems operate on the basis of scarcity; seek to control culture through finance and power grabbing and reinforce colonial power structures.

Of course the reason for the hierarchy of the arts is driven by the art market - objects are easier to commodify and sacralise in white voids, context-less and therefore separate from life itself.

Art itself should challenge hierarchical distinctions in art and life. Obviously this has happened numerous times (Allan Kaprow, Joseph Beuys and the wider Fluxus group with their anti art aesthetic and use of everyday or natural objects and drawing attention to the social in art) but surely music has come the closest to breaking down the barriers between art and life....rock n roll....punk...hip-hop...In the end though all these attempts are sucked up into the commercial world with individual heroes being elevated to god like status and shown in galleries (oh the irony) around the world.

Privatising art is an instrument of oppression and exclusion but...art and everyday experiences are interconnected. Making art encourages a social, emotional and material encounter where we get to play out our full authentic existence, with all our bodily curiosity.

Art in a capitalist world will never be free.

So what does art world abolition look like?

I'd love to see educational spaces everywhere that actively disrupts and seeks to dismantle the art world.

tbc…

NB this ‘Praxis’ series is about making and reflecting, about practice as research and inquiry.