Text by Gavin Grindon & John Jordan; Illustrations by Richard Houguez; Design by DarĂo Marroche
Purchased from Possible Worlds
Art is useless, so they tell us. As soon as it truly affects the world it loses its status as art. […] "Art" has always been useful to someone. When it becomes a commodity-object, bound by the limits of the market it's an aesthetic amplifier for the values of the status quo, when its "political art" safely enclosed in a museum it becomes a cool cultural mask over the catastrophe that is capitalism.
The text challenge my understanding of art, moving away from a “thing” to purchase, create or imitate, to art as putting into action my life experiences and perceptions of art.
Art is not a notion but a motion. It's not important what art is but what it does. -Gilles Deleuze
From this lens, art is a form of resistance, and an important vehicle for change.
Oscar Wilde suggested that "Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's (sic.) original virtue. It is through disobedience and rebellion that progress has been made." He knew that only by acting out his greatest desires, even if they could land him temporarily in jail, was he going to be really free.