The Nature of Beauty in Contemporary Art

by Suzi Gablik
A new paradigm of an engaged, participatory and socially relevant art is
emerging.
If youre out, youre out - you simply dont count," the artist Sandro Chia once
declared in an interview in Art in America. Referring to the art world, he said,
"Anything that happens must happen within this system," which he went on to
describe: "I work for a few months, then I go to a gallery and show the dealer my
work. The work is accepted, the dealer makes a selection, then an installation.
People come and say youre good or not so good, then they pay for these
paintings and hang them on other walls. They give cocktail parties and we all go
to restaurants and meet girls. I think this is the weirdest scene in the world."
Sandro Chias description of the art world as a suburb of hell is all too familiar; it is
a world in which artists are defined through showing or not showing, selling or not
selling, and through the goals of money, prestige, and power that are so crucial to
our whole societys notion of success. Within the modernist paradigm under which
I grew up, art has been typically understood as a collection of prestigious objects,
existing in museums and galleries, disconnected from ordinary life and action.
Defined entirely in individualistic terms, the modern artists quest was enacted
within the inner sanctum of a studio, behind closed doors. This mythology of the
lone genius, isolated from society, and relieved of social responsibility, is summed
up for me in these comments by the painter Georg Baselitz: "The artist is not
responsible to anyone. His social role is asocial; his only responsibility consists in
an attitude to the work he does. There is no communication with any public
whatsoever... It is the end product which counts, in my case, the picture."
Recently, when he was asked on the occasion of his Guggenheim retrospective
what role he believes art plays in society, Baselitz replied, "The same role as a
good shoe, nothing more." And he has stated elsewhere: "The idea of changing or

improving the world is alien to me and seems ludicrous. Society functions, and
always has, without the artist. No artist has ever changed anything for better or
worse."
Many of the beliefs about art that our culture subscribes to, that the problems of
art are purely aesthetic and that art will never change the world, are beliefs that
have diminished the capacity of artists for constructive thought and action. The
critic Arthur C. Danto has referred to this state of affairs as "the
disenfranchisement of art", because the hidden constraints of a morally neutral,
art-for-arts sake philosophy is that it has led artists to their marginalized
condition in society. I first began to question this mythology myself when I
wrote Has Modernism Failed?, and since then, many things have happened to
change the situation. The environment is disintegrating, time is running out, and
not much is being done.

Artistic Responsibility
Many artists now see their role as sounding the alarm, and have felt the need to
alter the direction of their art so that it is more socially and environmentally
defined. Such artists incarnate different ideals and a different philosophy of life.
Performance artist Guillermo Gmez-Pea states, for example, "Most of the work
Im doing currently comes, I think, from the realization that were living in a state
of emergency. I feel that more than ever we must step outside the strictly art
arena. It is not enough to make art." In a similar vein, Chicago artist Othello
Anderson states: "Carbon and other pollutants are emitted into the air in such
massive quantities that large areas of forest landscapes are dying from the effects
of acid rain. Recognizing this crisis, as an artist I can no longer consider making
art that is void of moral consciousness, art that carries no responsibility, art
without spiritual content, art that places form above content, or art that denies
the state of the very world in which it exists."

As many artists shift their work arena from the studio to the more public contexts
of political, social, and environmental life, we are all being called, in our
understanding of what art is, to move beyond the mode of disinterested
contemplation to something that is more participatory and engaged. Such art may
not hang on walls; it may not even be found in museums or beautiful objects, but
rather in some visible manifestation of what psychologist James Hillman refers to
as "the souls desperate concerns." For such artists, vision is not defined by the
disembodied eye, as we have been trained to believe. Vision is a social practice
that is rooted in the whole of being.

Breaking with the Paradigm of Vision

Writing The Reenchantment of Art represented my own philosophical "break"

with the paradigm of vision and the disembodied eye as the axiomatic basis for
artistic practice.
For instance, I wrote at some length about an art project initiated by a friend of
mine in Santa Fe, Dominique Mazeaud, which she calls "The Great Cleansing of
the Rio Grande River". For several years, armed with garbage bags donated by
the city, Mazeaud and a few friends who sometimes accompanied her, would
meet once a month and ritually clean garbage out of the river. Part of the work
involves keeping a diary, entitled Riveries, in which she writes about her
experiences. Briefly, here are some extracts:
November 19 My friend Margret drops me off at Delgado promptly at 9:00
am. Because of the snow I was not sure of the conditions I would find but
did not doubt a second that I would put in my day. I find a stone warmed by
the morning sun which makes a perfect site for my beginning prayer. Yes, I
see what I am doing as a way of praying: Picking up a can/From the
river/And then another/on and on/Its like a devotee/Doing countless
rosaries.

December 2 Why in all religions is water such a sacred symbol? How much
longer is it going to take us to see the trouble of our waters? How many
more dead fish floating on the Rhine River? How many kinds of toxic waste
dumpings? When are we going to turn our malady of separateness around?
March 19 1 cant get away from you river/In the middle of the night/I feel
you on my back/In my throat, in my heart.
July 20 Two more huge bags I could hardly carry to the cans. I dont count
any more. I dont announce my "art for the earth" in the papers either. All
alone in the river, I pray and pick up, pick up and pray. Who can I really talk
to about what I see?... I have also noticed that I stopped collecting the socalled treasures of the river. It was OK at the beginning, but today I feel it
was buying into the present system of art thats so much object-oriented. Is
it because I am saying that what I am doing is art that I need to produce
something?

Eventually, as the artists connection with the river deepens into that of friend and
confidante, and even that of teacher, she reaches a point where her relationship
with the river becomes even more important than her original ecological incentive
to clean it. "For the first time last month," she comments, my meditation directed
me to go and be with the river and not do anything. The instructions were clear:
"Dont even take one garbage bag." Her activity had subtly shifted, until it was no
longer a systematic retrieving of everything in sight, but has become her own
personal dialogue with the river. The river as a living being has something to say.
"I have landed in a new landscape," Mazeaud states, "where I discover the river is
as true an artist as I am."

The hegemony of the eye is very strong in our culture, and to challenge the
commitment to its ocular-centric, or vision-centered aesthetic, replacing it with a
paradigm shift that displaces vision with the very different influence of listening, is
to open oneself up to the complaint that what is being described here is not art at
all, but environmental activism, or social work. Many individuals who saw their
own ideas reflected in my books agenda were enthusiastic and friendly, whereas

those who thought that art should be unencumbered by any moral or social
purpose were resistant and unfriendly, because it seemed to undermine the way
they see their task.
When I lectured together with the critic Hilton Kramer a few years ago in Madison,
Wisconsin, he proclaimed, with the force of a typhoon, on the podium after my
talk, that things with no relation to art were now being legitimized and accepted
as art, when, he claimed, art is incapable of solving any problems except
aesthetic ones. Kramer is in the forefront of those who believe that when art is
actively engaged with the world, its aesthetic quality is necessarily compromised.
I, on the other hand, consider that such art is often intensely aesthetic, because in
responding compassionately to whatever it touches, it is helping to create a more
beautiful world. Artists whose work helps to heal our soulless attitudes toward the
physical world have my full respect and attention because, for me, beauty is an
activity rather than an entity, a consciousness of, and reverence for, the beauty of
the world.

Art and the Return of Soul

Id like to conclude with some pertinent comments between myself and Thomas
Moore taken from my new book Conversations Before the End of Time.
Suzi: As I understand your sense of the soulful life, it would mean bringing art
back into a more vernacular, everyday world, and taking it out of the more
rarefied sphere of professionalism. You mentioned in the letter you wrote to me
that you are very interested in the role of the arts in the world today. Do you see
art as being an important vehicle for the return of soul?
Moore: Probably its most important vehicle.
Suzi: Do you want to elaborate on this?
Moore: Yes, theres so much to say here. First, though, Id like to pick up on this
point of yours about everyday life. There are a number of ways in which we could
bring the artist back into everyday life, so that we dont just have this fringe art

world that doesnt really touch on the values of the way we live, essentially. One
way would be for the artist truly to feel a sense of conviviality in the society, in
being part of that community, so that theres a responsibility, and a pleasure, in
going into the world and being part of, say, actually designing the city... We cant
suddenly begin living a more artful life, which is the avenue to soul, if in the public
life around us, and in everything we see and inhabit, art is invisible.
Suzi: And so, in your thinking, that could be a whole new paradigm for a socially
relevant kind of artnot precisely in the sense thats being talked about in the art
world now of "political correctness" and social critique, but rather a kind of art
that celebrates and participates robustly in the life-world.
Moore: Exactly. And heres another point about soul.., soul enters life through
pleasure. Its psyche and eros going together, rather than principle and
responsibility. Responsibility suggests a kind of outward superego coming in and
saying, "You know, this is what you should be doing." That is not a new paradigm;
were not moving out of the modernistic world then. Were just feeling we should
do something different and more responsible.
Suzi: "If we are going to care for the soul," you say in your book, "and if we know
that the soul is nurtured by beauty, then we will have to understand beauty more
deeply and give it a more relevant place in life. Its not only pleasure and
conviviality, but also beauty that is necessary for the return of soul..." Its
interesting, dont you think, that archetypal psychologists are the ones who seem
to be taking the lead for a renaissance of beauty in our lives, even more than
artists or aestheticians?

Art in service of humanity

In my new book, Conversations Before the End of Time, James Hillman and I
discuss the river project of Dominique Mazeaud in a way that is relevant, I think,
to the issues being addressed in my paper.
Suzi: The point is, James, that within the traditionally accepted model of the artist,
based on isolated individualism, its very difficult to perceive any strong

connection or direct influence that art could have on the world. Thats why in my
writing I have been drawn to artists who are using their creativity in ways that can
have a more direct effect.
Hillman: Weve talked about this before, and I think theres a problem, about, first
of all, why thats art, and second of all, whats the difference between that artist
cleaning the river and lart pour lart? Because in the end, her art has no worldly
effect. You say yourself that its not really even meant to clean the river; it
becomes a devotional ritual. (But for me the real problem is) what gets
metaphorized in her work? Doesnt she remain in the literal world? And, as such,
its not art? Shes literally cleaning the river!
Suzi: But thats a problem only if you want to define art as a separate aesthetic
realm, divorced from life and quarantined to the museum or art gallery. And only if
you want to insist on the Cartesian split between art and life, self and world.
Hillman: I certainly dont define art that way, but I do believe it transforms the
literal to the metaphorical and mythical. Otherwise, the social comment, politics,
advocacy, protest exist on one level only... For me, art is dedicated to beauty; its
a way to let beauty into our world by means of the artists gifts and sensibilities...
I think beauty needs to come into it somehow. Ideas of beauty and metaphor are
necessary to what I call art.
Suzi: In another of these conversations, Satish Kumar says that in India, art was
never meant to hang on wallsits part of life. He thinks that the desert of
ugliness all around us is connected with concentrating our notion of beauty in a
great body of works of art to be found only in the oases of museums. In India, art
is not separated from the normal flow of life. A lot of discussion is being instigated
by people now who feel that untilor unlessart can reconnect with life, its
going to stay marginal, without any part to play in the larger picture.
Hillman: Thats a very good point, because it shows something crucial to this
civilization: that the work in the river can be put in a different context altogether,
which is art in the service of... life. Like the way dance was originally in the service
of the tribal community; it wasnt dance for an audience on a stage. It was a
dance that helped the crops to grow.

Suzi: In our culture, the notion of art being in service to anything is anathema.
Aesthetics doesnt serve anything but itself and its own ends. I would like that to
change. When Hilton Kramer says that the minute you try to make art serve
anything, youre in a fascistic modewell, I dont believe that.
Hillman: Id like to defend the cleaning of the river, for a moment. Im going back
to what you said a little earlier: its the attempt to put art in the service of
something.
Suzi: Yes, thats where the issue is.
Hillman: Art in the service of something. If we say that its life, and if we think, for
instance, of the Balinese village where everything is made to be functional and
useful, for celebrations or ceremonies... youre still in service to the gods,
somehow. Now we dont have thatweve wiped the gods out... So the god that
art now serves is the god that dominates the culture, which is the god of
commodity, of money. So it is in service, its in service to gods we dont approve
of... Now suppose the question doesnt become what art should do, but rather
how do we find that which art should serve? Art is already in service, so we could
perhaps change that to which it is in service?
Suzi: So the question is what could art better serve than the things it has been
serving, like bourgeois capitalism, throughout our lifetimes?
Hillman: Right! And I think the artist in the river is serving a different god.

Suzi Gablik is an artist, writer and teacher whose books include Has Modernism
Failed?, The Re-enchantment of Art and Conversations Before the End of Time.
This article is from a symposium on The Nature of Beauty in Contemporary Art
sponsored by the New York Open Center and the International Society for
Consciousness in the Arts in October 1995.
This article was published in New Renaissance magazine Vol. 8, No.
1 Copyright 1998 by Renaissance Universal, all rights reserved.