Artistry is a Universal Blanket of Many Quilts and Fragments

The correlation between art and identity is a common bind with which many individuals promote a way of life. Although not improbable, it would be highly uncommon to perceive the stereotypical biker, those who drive a Harley Davidson, wear leather pants and a skull and crossbones bandana, as listening to classical music while they park their “Chopper” outside a random bar, or a university scholar who specializes in the study of languages and History of Ancient Greece to preoccupy her/himself with a greatest hits collection of Death Metal music. Granted, either of these two perceptions may certainly happen, but I believe you understand what I am getting at. There are ties between art and identity which define a person’s cultural and artistic bias; the question is, what precisely do these correlations entail.

In one sense, one may simply say that art is objective, an entity onto itself regardless of one’s personality, but this becomes a complicated matter, a philosophy of aesthetics in which the question, does beauty exist, is often asked. One may argue that, yes, of course beauty exists, but what is the nature of those variables which deem something beautiful or aesthetically pleasing. What precisely is it that constitutes beauty? It may also be the case that beauty does not quite exists and that such a presupposed sense of objectivity is defined by one’s bias, or even influenced by external constructs of that which is defined as beauty. In the sensory, lustful sense, there is a mythological tale that during the Renaissance beautiful women were those described as large, with lots of mass and size whereas more contemporary views regard beauty as being thin and small. The point here is that beauty, particularly artistic beauty would be difficult to define objectively.

Despite these observations, I would argue that such an approach to limitless and multifaceted perspectives of beauty, or those perspectives we deem desirable in attributing to one’s identity is essential to relativist accounts under the umbrella of postmodernism. Motak points out that postmodernity binds a culture of individuality and is very objective in observing that “we are now living in the culture of individualism,” and references Durkheim in pointing out the “why man has become a god for men” and why “there remains nothing that man may love and honour in common, apart from himself” (qtd. in Motak 131). I would define such an observation as one in which humanity is no longer seeking a “universal” links that associates one’s identity with a group, community, or even a nation for that matter. Instead, we seem to seek a more narcissistic approach in differentiation and uniqueness. Motak also emphasizes a spiritual and religious approach in emphasizing that the postmodern individual holds no collective intermediaries and that the responsibility for an individual’s own destiny is grounded within one’s own sense of duty to oneself. Whether or not an identity is spiritual and religious, or secular and cultural, there is an irony to this presence of individuality. Consider the illustration of a rebel marching into the store and purchasing a Che Guevara T-shirt hailing capitalism to be evil, yet behind this rebel are one hundred more rebels motivated to do the same. Meanwhile, these capitalists are not only laughing all the way to the bank, but pointing fingers at the not so unique anti-capitalist group that is ascending their profits.

Threading back to the issue of personality and its binds to artistry as perceived out in society, it certainly seems true that this postmodern circle has a fair argument, but I would still argue that there are flaws in this argument and that the postmodern, individualistic agenda still has collective variables in one sense or another. Djikic et al. and the artistic, albeit psychological studies they applied reveal that works of fiction involve identification and self-implying processes (27, 28). While this may sound quite individualistic, it should be emphasized how the reader finds some correlative aspect of connection with the content matter in a work of fiction. That is, the story has some identifying feature that mirrors or parallels the mental constructs of an observer, and can “re-schematize” some category, character, scenario, environment, and the like with their own personalized sense of being. This is different from perceiving the artifact as unique to their own perceptions. Instead, the observers here are indeed connecting with some unifying tie within the scope of the work, one which has some type of specific characterization to their own sense of being. It may very well be the case that any artifact is incapable of being characterized as unique to an observer’s perceptions, for all artifacts have some type of embedded characteristic to which every observer may find a relevant agreement. There are what one would call underlying layers defining the many possible contexts with which one can identify. These contexts are not objectively and immediately present within an artistic work, but they are present via inference or conceptually and idealistically.

Art within the borderland has such diversity and sense of broad possibility, yet within those diverse variables lies a unifying tie to which human beings may identify. Consider the Jungian conception of archetypes, those imitative examples which hold a universal one can identify with. Perhaps that is why that fabled biker mentioned at the beginning likes the Harley, the bar scenario and doesn’t quite have a Mickey Mouse bumper sticker on his motorcycle, yet he understands and comprehends the fictional constructs of that symbol. Mickey Mouse represents a sense of innocence, youth and if stressed, a release from the burden of responsibility. The biker then, may desire to comprehend a release from burdens of responsibility, but to a certain extent, does the world in the holistic sense not desire to release themselves from the burdens of responsibility from time to time. Nevertheless, the biker would not desire to parallel his manly attribution to the childlike, innocent negotiations associated with Walt Disney’s protagonist. He wants to mirror that identity of toughness, rebellion and the aesthetic associated with some symbolic version of the bad. 

The claims of postmodernity do not quite stand because all presupposed claims of individuality all seem to connect to an underlying structure one is aware about, even if it initially requires interpretation. Grimm’s Little Red Riding Hood seems to promote the general idea that youth, particularly little girls, regardless of their level of maturity, should not necessarily deemed independent and left to rummage the world by themselves, for doing so would leave them vulnerable to the wolves of the world and left to be torn apart. The novel series Game of Thrones promotes a theme of power interlined between symbolism and romanticism. The abduction of youth and struggle for power is not something that is difficult see, regardless of how limited your education or exposure to literature or even the world may be. I argue these are archetypal and categorical features we don’t necessarily struggle to gain consciousness about. Even if one asks, are there not individual markers one may attribute to one’s personal experience; of course, however, each individual’s personal sense of being will categorize itself onto some structured universal. The Conquistador sculpture near El Paso’s International Airport may have a literal interpretation of an explorer, discover and traveler, but also one of oppression, exploitation, abuse, and murder. I am not certain a postmodernist can attribute such a sculpture with innocence, peacefulness, or humility, even if one sides with the Conquistadores of the past.

What becomes interesting in deciphering this tug and pull between art and identity is when one observes a work of considerable abstract nature. The murals of El Paso, and granted, not all of them, but many, have the Chicano umbrella hanging over them, this is generally easy to see; however, art across the border in Ciudad Juarez. There too, one will find many artistic artifacts in protest against the violence, femicide and corruption that is commonly identified with our border city, even if, on the surface, things seem to be much more in order, but Juarez too, has a multifaceted sense of artistic essence. The painting entitled, S/t, painted as oil over linen, by the artist C. Bonilla. has both a sense of abstraction in its caption and in its framed sense of being. It is so abstract, that it seems to lend itself to postmodernism more than to some agreed upon -ism, communal or social group. This is what I mean by a difficulty in a tug and pull, for that image apparently has no archetypal unity or universal theme. The painting does not hold a jingoistic agenda to Juarez or El Paso, to the immigrant or Chicano or Pocho on the margins; it simply seems to stand by itself. That said, the details do not frame a sense of clarity or an objective, sensory embodiment but there is at minimal the obvious details of dark colors and light colors, and thus, perhaps some understanding that this painting aligns itself amidst the formalist category of a good and evil, enlightenment and darkness, ascendance and descendance. Is the meaning obtuse? It is, and perhaps I am stretching this theme of unification more that I should, but it simply makes no sense to alienate it out in the woods by itself.

Part of my argument here is not simply aimed at stating that all art, in some sense or form, belongs to some agenda, group or critical category, nor that it is not open to some relativistic congruence. I am alluding to those claims, but also that art has no borders because in some sense or manner, even if identified with a particular ecology, environment, or context, it always has some type of unifying facet to which everyone can agree.  

Sources:

Djikic, Maja, et al. "On being moved by art: How reading fiction transforms the self." Creativity research journal 21.1 (2009): 24-29.

Motak, Dominika. "Postmodern spirituality and the culture of individualism." Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis 21 (2009).

Images courtesy of the author.