Art serves many purposes. I want to write about two today: life-enhancement and identity.
I’m not going to define life-enhancement. We all have an idea of what that can mean, for ourselves and for others. In some cases it may be a simple appeal to our pleasure receptors – sounds, sights, ideas that we respond to favorably. And by “favorably” I don’t necessarily mean that we like them: sometimes art presents us with ideas that disturb us, and that can be a favorable, life-enhancing experience.
I’m also not going to define identity. We all have at least a few, ranging from our individual selves to regional, racial, sexual, etc. groupings.
Rather than defining them, I’m more interested in the weight we give them in our discussions of art.
The world I grew up in – late-middle-twentieth-century America – put a particular spin on the life-enhancement role of art: it was celebrated primarily for its ability to elevate us, to help us improve our selves and our worlds. In that role, art was carefully cordoned off from mere entertainment, which was just seen as giving ephemeral pleasure, as opposed to lasting value.
Art as identity was in there, too, but in a way that was never directly acknowledged. Art was described as history-driven, a single trajectory which just happened to be guided exclusively by European men. Artists were expected to express their identities within this narrative, moving the evolution of art along with specific kinds of innovation. Artists who expressed an identity at odds with this trajectory were not taken seriously.
Today, there is a different emphasis. Art as identity is in ascendance, but now the meaning is more nuanced. It has become increasingly important for artists to express identities that lie outside of the traditional, evolutionary narrative of art: too many voices have been left out for too long. The result, I suppose, is an absence of over-riding narrative, of trajectory, which in many ways is a good thing.
Many of these expressions of identity outside of the Eurocentric path are life enhancing in a traditional sense. But regardless of their accomplishments, their very existence can be considered life enhancing, because they broaden and deepen our understanding of the human condition.
I like this shift. But welcoming it leaves me in an odd position. The model I grew up with is the one I know and respond to. I recognize its imperfections, yet it moves me like nothing else. This shouldn’t be surprising. After all, I am human, and we are all familiar with the fact that human beings can admire perfection without loving it. I love what I do (and that is a great example of love despite imperfections – I am deeply aware of the flaws in my music). I continue to create the work I create because it proceeds in the ways I need it to proceed, and it means what I need it to mean. I feel okay about this, even though it runs counter to the prevalent needs and moods of our culture. In fact, I feel very happy about it, fortunate to have a suitable medium for understanding myself and my times. It’s never been my aspiration to speak to everyone, or to millions, or to any particular number. It’s the quality of communication I prize, not the quantity.