Meditations on the uses of art in the 21st century BY AN ART HISTORIAN  
 
Can Art can save the world ?

The ACA Gallery in Toronto was founded in 2004 by Carol Mark to show art works in the context of positive change. The aim of this unique place is to seek out art works as vectors of possible individual transformation and reflection, rather than promote art-based products in a market economy , as seems to be the increasing trend, save for a bunch of idealists such as the indomitable Ms Mark. Furthermore, and this is quite exceptional, the benefits go to grassroots causes supported by the Gallery. ‘Art can save the world’ this is the gallery’s motto. It is obvious here that art here can indeed save the world in more ways than one.

How does a project of this kind survive in a world swamped by images of every kind, so much so that they indeed have come to replace reality in an increasingly virtual world. Visuals create our standards, hopes and  nurture our realities. Hollywood sets out standards of beauty, sex and desirability, CNN news et al establish criteria of ‘acceptable’ horror- collateral damage seen from afar, rubble, not corpses etc, ‘My Space’ allows for self-mythication , digital files (eminently erasable) have replaced photo-albums.

The list goes on.

Why on earth travel to the other end of the world, trudge up those slippery marble stairs, face indifferent to downright rude guards in order to view Mona Lisa first hand ? You could study it in detail without the crowd, the hassle, the expense on your very own computer, in your favourite chair, drinking the same wine you might have purchased across the road from the Louvre museum. Ah yes, you answer, but what about the experience, how do you share something viewed on a computer in between your email and virtual shopping mall? The dog, the cat, yes certainly, why not the raccoon that is rifling through your garbage as you read this?
 
I have been teaching in the Louvre for over twelve years. I have made my students observe the crowds as they file in to look at the Louvre, like pilgrims in awe expecting epiphany. And then it happens, mouths fall open, eyebrows  are raised. Is this it? they mutter, so small ? That’s not a smile, that’s smirk. Not at all what I expected….They then seek consolation from the more readily recognizable marketables, tee-shirts, ashtrays, key-rings that will tell the people back home that they have actually experienced the original .

What original ? The true original was in the mind, a big quasi-fluorescent vision of a mysteriously smiling woman enticing the whole world and this is what they projected on the undeserving, ungrateful masterpiece. Yes, it is a masterpiece, but so hard to rediscover as such, because it has been drowned by the media. Which is why I push my students towards the other portrait by Leonardo da Vinci which none of the Mona Lisa crowd get to look at, a lively dark haired young woman, known by her French title ‘La Belle Ferronière’. I always take the selfsame students for one class in the African/Oceanic section so that they totally lose their bearings in front of fabulous sculptures that refuse to tell stories or look like someone they might have known. All these art works tell us so much about the world they were created for, the unique perception of the artist and just as much about ourselves. Yet the mystery remains, each time you look at it, you will discover something else. I tell my students that looking at original art works is just like listening to live music. A one-of, unrepeatable experience because you are a particular person with a particular mind set at that very moment.

Now these works are amongst the world’s acknowledged great masterpieces- were painted at a time when images were rare and reality ubiquitous, so to say. Altarpieces, portraits, religious sculptures were special and unique in a way they never have been since the age of mass media. People gazed in wonder: in the West, they were often fascinated by the resemblance of art works with the visual environment, in Africa and Asia, art was there to express the spiritual world,  the invisible, deities but also fears, anxieties and hopes. In both cases, the artist produced some kind of unique magic, each art work was special just as viewing it was a deep experience liable to affect the viewer for life and introduce a new dimension.

Has art lost this magic force today ? What does a diamond-studded  human skull recently shown by one of the world’s most expensive artists in London bring to the world ? What do photo-shopped snapshots of trivia, supposedly made aesthetic because of size and price of framing, contribute?  Is there life beyond the gimmick? A great friend of mine, the renowned photographer Harlan Feltus who sadly passed away used to joke ‘Art can break your heart, but kitsch will make you rich’. And he broke all our hearts with the most moving pictures of children. Kitsch would certainly have turned him into a millionaire, but he did n’t care to go that way.

 But there are honest artists amongst us still, seeking to express something unique that has surged inside themselves. These might be the divinities of a spiritual world they alone can see, memories which they might want to share, social criticism or a moment of, dare I use the b-word -  beauty. Dostoyevsky’s novel ‘The Idiot’ concludes on these words  ‘Beauty will save the world’. It is a way of saying that our aspirations and hopes for a better world, a way out of chaos, a bolt out of the blue there to surprise us and take us elsewhere in our minds and our hearts. This is what Carol Mark is trying to do in her gallery. But the viewer has to give him/herself a chance, stop for a while, wait, watch listen. Breathe. You can come and meditate in front of the art works she shows, spend all day if you like. Nobody will push you to buy (but you can and the money will go to an admirable cause, the first library and play centre for kids in Afghanistan). You can share your feelings with others there and when you leave the gallery the sky will be filled with colours and light, flowers will  be growing between the cracks of the pavement. Perhaps even you will have even helped a little Afghan child to discover fairy-tales. Beauty can indeed save the world, yours, ours, theirs
 
Carol Mann, art historian, sociologist, novelist, humanitarian activist
Paris, France