How Art Could Save The World

It’s extremely difficult to define “art” in modern times. As of recent, postmodernism has taken a hold of how we express our artistic capabilities, namely, through social media and memes. No longer is art confined to a specific place, ala the movie theater, or a museum. Art is more so than ever, a universal thing could be accessed anywhere, anytime and criticized by anyone. It is astonishing how much of a goldmine for genius ideas our newsfeed could possibly be.

But art, true art that is, truly does have the capability of bringing us all together and revealing to ourselves our true nature as human beings. We are driven to create and appreciate great pieces of music, films and paintings even those that are apolitical and seemingly irrelevant to the on-going events - out of boredom, and the ever desire to express our thoughts and emotions.

We are naturally drawn to statements that could resonate with us and our place in society. The existential and political angst the artist faces in modern times as they’re conveying ideas, through conventional means of art. The recent Joker movie is a prime example of how a fictional character could be representative and even reflective of certain group(s) of people, in this case, the mentally ill. The character Arthur Fleck (presumably based on respectively the two classic Martin’s characters Travis Bickle and Rupert Pupkin) should give us a clear, albeit twisted image of a modern tragedy: He’s a mentally ill loner who’s also got a medical condition where he can’t control his laugh. He’s misunderstood, isolated and mistreated by society, who harbors dangerous perspectives about life and about himself.

That’s scarily relatable for most of us.

Art is both personal and universal and in most if not all cases, all-encompassing.

“It’s easy enough for you to say” you’d say, “you’re not part of the minority out there who are struggling on a daily basis and couldn’t care less if your favorite film by your favorite director is crucified by the critics; and oh, all that widespread positive messages about how all we need is love? Tell that to a family of ten in India.”

That’s also the very reason why every artist’s front and foremost question in mind as the creators of art should be that, does the art demonstrate what has not already been stated before? What could it possibly bring to the table on not just an artistic but also political level? Could it stand the test of time? That is what separates good art from masterworks.

After all, we need something to remind us that our souls are present, still, especially in an age of cynicism and that everything that we do matters in the grand scheme of things. And art, despite the circumstances throughout hundreds of thousands of years of history, has gone on still to fulfill that need and will continue to do so as long as we are still kicking.

In other words, our insignificance, directly or indirectly, influences our decision to create our own significance.

We create and also rejoy to the fact that we are creating. So let’s vibe while we are still able to.