Landay Article on Art

So, I was looking for an evite that got lost in the midst of some emails and just ran across something interesting...I sent out an article to several friends this summer and it inspired a rather fiery debate on art, sports, and culture. While I will concur that certain aspects of the article are debatable, I also think it raises some good questions.

I'm going to post the article here for another go-round of discussion. Hopefully it won't inspire too much controversy, but i'd like to hear people's thoughts...

"We Need Art to Tell us Who We Are" by Jerry M. Landay: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0428-23.htm

Here's an excerpt that I especially like:

Fine art (without the million-dollar-signs) has a story to tell. It speaks to the soul about our ideals and values. The artist makes meaning about life and times. He/she tells us who we are, why we love and suffer, what our civilization stands for or against, what is important and what is not.

Art is something that graces a tedious life with joy, beauty, taste and, yes, a critical eye. It speaks to the past and the future of who we were and are, and who we ought to be. It elevates us to personhood.

Art finds splendor in an uglified world.

Without being reared to know art, we will simply be a very tired, bored and boorish people. We will look but rarely see, listen but rarely hear. That's what the parents and high-school students of Bristol decided when they raised a hulabaloo about the the dropping of the band teacher.

Maybe you think the above statements are crazy, but I talk to artists-of all sorts and shapes-almost every day who tell me the exact same thing. To a degree, they get it where many of us just don't.

It makes me sad that discussions on the role and importance of art are often ones that divide communities, but this also a subject that I think we need to raise. What mediums are we using to communicate with our children? How are we working out our own understandings of the world? Have we replaced art with "microwave entertainment," settling for a cheap substitute in place of something substantial? Depending on the situation, I think the answer is both yes and no. I actually like that this piece rubs people a little bit right where it hurts...maybe we need to be doing that more often. Too often writers are afraid of arousing controversy, so their work remains stagnant and boring, and does little to encourage people to second guess their assumptions. In other words, there is a lot of writing that does little more than promote the status quo. Sure, there's such a thing as being overly critical, overly cynical, but the opposite is also not good for us. Good writing gets us on our feet, whether we agree with what it has to say or not; it makes us think deeply about the close-knit things of life. Good art is, in my opinion, a vehicle to and expression of the truth.

With that said, take the article, critique and share your responses. I'd love to hear them (either online or privately). And for those who read my email thread on this topic in July, let's have another go-round; hopefully this time I won't come back with an essay-length response. ;)