Art and what it says to you.

Voices

The ultimate goal of an artist is to communicate. The artist wishes to convey a message to an audience through their work. Sometimes a message is heard, though, at times it may not be the message that was intended. Other times no message is heard at all. A huge gathering of art whispering into the ears of passerby, telling all sorts of wonderful ideas and inspirations. This is Art Prize.

Towering above the heads of the people, or sliding in just beneath their gaze, the art stood among the sea of people, filtering in and out of view. Each time a person turned an eye towards the art it would cry out towards them seeking for their message to be heard among the cries of so many others. Many cultures, ages, genres, and styles are reflected in the people and the art they were admiring. People from all over the city and from cities all around, people from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds come to see the art. Each person hears a different story from the art they see, understands a different meaning from the piece sitting before them. You have to find the piece that speaks to you, not the piece that when you spend ten minutes staring at you start to think of something, but the piece that immediately says something to you when you look at it. You will find that not all the pieces speak to you. Maybe you will find that very few of the pieces actually mean anything to you right away. I saw a piece called The Remix that immediately spoke to me, and the wheels in my mind started to turn. This piece was a series of sculptures that were vaguely human shaped. Each one was inhuman in its whole shape and all were grotesquely malformed and twisted in terms of the human body. My first thought upon seeing the sculptures, the words that the art whispered to me was “twisted Humanity.” I began thinking of how the world around us is twisted and the hearts of the people around us in our everyday lives are broken and dark. The values and morals of the culture are twisted and blackened beyond earthly repair. As I looked at each sculpture individually I see each sculpture is formed in a different way. None of them look the same as another. At this I reflected upon the fact that each person’s sin is their own. Each person has their sin and it is their own. The responsibility for it is their own, and none can judge another due to the wickedness in their own heart.

A friend remarked on another sculpture named Barrel of monkeys, that spoke to her of the futility of holding onto what we have. She said the sculpture “Is supposed to show stupidity and futility.” The sculpture was of several men who looked like they were doing handstands on each other’s feet. The men were not doing handstands; instead the men looked as if some force was pulling them upward. As is gravity were reversed and everything was floating up and away. The men were grasping onto anything, including each other, to keep themselves down on earth with all their stuff. It would be so much easier for the men to let go of it all and let that force carry them upwards away from their worldly possessions and ideas. This train of thought reminded me of the time I put my worries upon God and His Son. The peace I felt when I let go and put it into the hands of the lord was great.

Not all art will speak to you or have meaning for you. The trick is finding the piece that does. There is an Art Prize every year and new art emerges all the time. I encourage anyone to look at some art and put some thought into those little ideas that might just pop into their head. That is the art speaking to you and all you have to do is listen.