Why art is important | Katerina Gregos | TEDxGhent

[TED Intro Music]

I must confess I feel a little bit like

Little Miss Sunshine after all these

wonderful presentations. I'm standing

here on this empty stage. I have no

slides, no music, no PowerPoint and I'm

sitting here with my cards with a speech

I didn't memorize. But in any case I

really hope to inspire you to reflect

more on the important role that art has

to play in society, and to do so without

images, which is something very, very

difficult for someone on my vocation. "All

art is quite useless", wrote Oscar Wilde

in his preface the "Picture of Dorian

Gray". It goes without saying that his

Bowmore are always quite tongue-in-cheek,

but what I want to draw your attention

to here is the word "quite". It indicates

that declaring art as utterly useless

was a step too far even for Wilde. How to

better explain then, that art is

something of an unnecessary necessity.

Imagine for a moment a world without art

and culture. Without music, without cinema

without dance, opera, literature, poetry--

that world would be a very, very dull

place devoid of imagination; the one

thing that distinguishes us as human

beings from other species. Without art,

the banality of reality would be

intolerable. Or to paraphrase Nietzsche,

"we have art in order not to perish from

the truth". What I want to talk about

today is the role of contemporary art in

society. Why is art important? And I'm

not talking here about the one percent

of the art world. The handful of artists

selling for millions of dollars to

billion, billionaire oligarchs-which is a

very tiny minority of what constitutes

the art world. But about the art that is

engaged with society at large and

engaging also with the key issues that

affect us all today,

because that is the art that matters.

Today more and more artists are inspired

by reality than by the formal properties

of that reality as we know them-colors,

shapes, beauty. In today's complex world,

I believe that art for art's sake is

insufficient. It is the importance of

another kind of art that I would like to

talk about and this is what we call

socially and politically engaged art.

Artists working in this realm, the realm

of the socio-political, use different

media to express themselves-from

traditional media like sculpture and

painting, to film, video performance, and

installation-to deal with key questions

such as democracy, civil and human rights,

capitalism, the economy, migration, and

mobility, the environment and the Commons,

and a whole host of such issues. They

strive to provide a counterpoint to the

prevailing images of power and also to

the stereotypes that are fed to us by

the media. Since the time of the

Enlightenment art has a very long

history of engagement with the political.

Art is in a sense political, as it is

about a person's views and freedom to

act; freedom to express themselves. So art

is always about taking a position. There

have been moments in history where art

was put to the service of politics and

society in a program in which the gap

between the two was temporarily bridged.

One can immediately think of example of

the Russian avant-garde. But this effect

has been always very hard to pinpoint

and to quantify and times have changed.

So then, what does art do? What can it do?

And why is it important? The fact of the

matter is, that it is very, very difficult

to pigeonhole and categorize what

exactly art is, and how it functions. That

is its beauty, and that is its

ungraspable value. For want of a better

word, it is impossible to both quantify

and qualify how art affects those

who see it because it works in

mysterious, latent, and very subtle ways.

That's why it's always such an uphill

struggle to convince politicians of arts

funding. To convince them that the value,

that is, the importance, the significance

and the merit of art, cannot be judged by

popular consensus and numbers alone. And

this is because art allows for something

that cannot be defined. Therefore one can

never predict the ways in which it will

affect people change people's minds or

influence their subsequent behavior. As

such, it's a subtle power that changes

the world

one perception at a time, and that is why

art is very often seen, and rightly so, as

a threat by the powers that be. The

British artist, Antony Gormley, began by

defining art as follows, "Art is about one

person's expectation of and their use of

their own freedom to act. Art is

optimistic because it makes a person, it

makes a statement that one person can

change the world, even if that world

exists on a tiny piece of paper 5x7

inches. Art as an act of shared

communication is in a small way saying, 'I

make the world,

I don't simply inherit it." In making this

world,

what does art do then? Art can change the

way we think. It can crack open cemented

opinions and it challenges the given. It

looks at the world with a critical eye.

It opens up horizons, but beyond those

which are familiar to us.

It challenges standardized or

problematic views of the world. It

exposes that which is often hidden under

the carpet. It reaches further than the

accepted and the known and beyond the

inevitability that we have been told we

cannot escape. Art functions as the

conscience of society. The best art

should ask you what you think, prompt you

to ask questions,

and put you into doubt. Art testifies to

the power of the human imagination. The

unique capacity of humans to project, to

dream, and to reflect on things not only

as they are, but as they could, or should

be. In a world driven by popular

consensus, including for example, the

homogenization of globalization, and the

general dominance of conservative values,

art advocates difference and gives voice

to the other with a capital 'O'. It

highlights important ideas, problems, and

issues that are sidelined or silenced

due to political or economic interests.

Art functions as the barometer of

society; as a moral and intellectual

resistance. And as a friend of mine, the

South African artist, Kendall Gear says,

"Art shakes the tree and then all the

monkeys fall out". Art doesn't change the

world on a macro level, it changes the

world on a micro level. In that sense, its

importance cannot be measured. Art

changes things in very subtle ways; it is

a form of soft power. Artists themselves

are a kind of free-floating intelligence:

independently operating, untied

individuals, who are free of the

normative thinking of their environment

and are able to act independently of

social or class realities. Art can foster

dialogue, reconciliation, engagement,

solidarity connectivity, and

understanding of those with opposing

views. I'm convinced that if more people

engage with it, the world would be a much

better place. In that sense, art should

also have a much more important place in

school curriculums and education.

Artistic imagination and creativity are

not added bonuses for society, they're

not the icing on the cake, they are

integral to the human spirit and to

human aspirations; an essential part of

what makes us human. Art thinks about the

world in its current state and it can

re-imagine the world as it should be. More

importantly, art is the last frontier

of unregulated, free expression.

Which is particularly important at a

time when the Commons,

public space, and information are

increasingly being privatized and

regulated by the neoliberal order. In

that sense, art is born of, and advocates

freedom. Artists always see a world full

of opportunities, chances, potential,

possibilities, and prospects. Their

ability to go beyond the possible and

into the imaginable should be an example

and an inspiration for us all. And as I

started with Oscar Wilde I'd also like

to finish with him, "No great artist sees

things as they really are. If he did you

would cease to be an artist". Open your

eyes to art and surprise yourself.

[applause]