LITERATURE & WRITING: And Art; P & I

A very interesting article in the NY Times today that confirms my earlier musings on art belonging to the public.

CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK

Why Attack Art? Its Role Is to Be HelpfulBy ROBERTA SMITH

Published: May 13, 2004

“Almost as long as there has been art, there has been iconoclasm. In these days of anger management courses, we might call it art rage. A work of art offends people’s religious or political beliefs or their sense of propriety, and they take matters into their own hands and damage or destroy it.”

“Art’s job is to provoke thought in ways that are difficult to resolve and uncomfortable; it’s a relatively neutral place to experience the unresolvable issues that dominate real life, to practice a kind of abstract flexibility that might move us toward resolution in real life.”

“In a sense all artworks aspire to be arguments for argument’s sake. They are places to entertain new thoughts and try out opposing viewpoints and to practice tolerance and flexibility. Real life needs all of these things as much as it ever has, if not more.”

My only disagreement is the non-generalization of “art’s “job” and “all artworks aspire…”

Since it is truly up to the individual, than these statements are in direct conflict with the thought.