The Powerful Voice of Art - Essay Example

?The Powerful Voice of Art Art is defined as a form of expression. It has evolved from a series ical dynasties throughout history. It also has continuously revolutionized radical movements especially in this modern time. Definition of art today greatly varies from how it is classified from old times. Art today is devoid of walls from the conventional aesthetic standards of output where expressions are devised in many various forms. Today, art is a powerful tool used to voice out socio-political matters. Every man is an artist. Every individual has a way to voice out what is going on inside of him and loose it out in ways that would make an impact to whoever perceives. This radical evolution of art gaining evolutionary-revolutionary power over humankind has shaken the society. Art as an expression reflects what is happening in a certain society and culture. If art is a work output, then it must come from inside of the artist. The freedom of every individual lets him explore the vastness of his creativity exploding into varied concepts of supreme work of art and achievements. The dynamic relationship of the artist with the environment creates significant thoughts within him. With all his intellect, emotions, and religious beliefs, he freely cast out what he infers from his system. This symbiotic human cycle produces a total artwork that is directed into shaping the world creating history and directing the course of the future. The axiom that art has been devised by modern people as the tool to voice out socio-political concerns is highly evident in the many various forms of arts now produced. In fact, many art shows conceptualized with a certain theme has been made all over the world. Artists, their supporters and critics flock like vultures at these events creating both ingrates and malcontents alike. The immersion and integration of various works of arts revolving around a single theme or idea echo with a bang to the public. The message is sent out clear and loud. In fact, louder than expected since a lot of people react differently to them. Hence, it creates so much controversy that can not taken for granted. They are called in various names: Artist as Victim, Artist as Star, Victim’s representative or whatever. There is a raw exposure of the various artist feelings of marginalization and exclusion according to what they perceive from the present outside world. This creates a big fiesta of whining with loud utterances of hidden parody made for women, lesbians, gays, blacks, the poor and deprived (Hughes, 1993). Barbara Kruger is one artist of the modern times that creates a voice heard instantly by those who perceive her works. Many of her works provoke issues and create lasting consciousness to the passive public. Feminism is greatly conveyed by most of her works. Generally, her masterpieces, maybe, a collage, photo shoot, or a canvass of massive blots with various hues is centralized with what is deep inside of her. The colors with captions chants with loud and piercing sonata as they are mass produced in various mediums such as T-shirts, cups, streamers, billboards, and etc. Some may consider them as commercialism strategy, but still, the existence of sharp concerto through the soundless voice in the message of her works has indeed reach the ears even to the society dozed in somber aloofness. Kruger’s stylistic works can come from a magazine image, black and white pictures, enlarged image skewed to monumental proportions, photos from real life events, incorporation of various clippings, and collages. Most of her works are known for captions and text message embezzled on the image. She is quite vocal in addressing her thoughts in her works regardless of medium. She incorporates language and pictures quite powerfully. Some of her works, “We won’t play nature to your culture” and “Perfect” are great masterpieces that echoes feministic ideas. The former shows a picture of a woman’s countenance with eyes covered with leaves. Thousand words can be used to describe the supposed to be thoughts of the woman. Yet the caption re-echoes what is in her mind. Audiences are left to hear her cries being a woman. The latter work on the other hand portrays a woman’s arms clasped in an act of prayer as if evoking the Virgin Mary. Feminism in the most docile and submissive way, again reverberated by the caption. Kruger’s works exposes her feministic commentaries and provocations about the politics, sex, racial discrimination, gender stereotyping, war, peace, greed, religion and other socio-political issues. The combination of monochromatic images captioned with pithy cliches cants against the contemporary world where greed, hypocrisy, oppression and abuse of power are existent. She is an epitome of a complete deviation from the stereotype and traditional artist. But her powerful work of arts has for its reason, created a buzz and kitschy reputation that reached the consciousness of the popular culture (Ideas of the Postmodern pp 1070). Indeed, Kruger’s works can be used by many feminist groups. Some political propaganda may even take her works as the voice of the woman in pursuant of political claim. Social media can take her works among others as serious issues that may cause alarm to the current stabilization of the culture. Her works can bring into social awareness to passive audiences. The voice of art can coal those who are already heated up and waiting for the blow-off. Modern artists like Kruger gather together in shows and museums composed of videos, photography, sculptures, paintings, graffiti and words on the walls. They even come up with catalogs that contain the included artists and the thematic slogan featured on the event. The concluding vigilant riff for their collaborative efforts can strike their visitors and audiences. Almost all of the post-modern views touch sensitive areas that could provoke arguments and criticisms from the politicians, academe, scholars, religious people and the general public. Some may agree to what they are standing for, while some may smirk at the radical movements imposed by the group. To some extent, some may come to violent reactions expressing their distaste in commentary columns, interviews and other media. Some political agenda pointed out as theme can gain influence to those attendees and to those who heard about the event. Art, in its simplistic forms such as quadratic monochromatic photo galleries, lifeless sculptures and so on, can evoke so much emotion to the society. To pursue their message, some even make out parodic weapons to make their missive count such as using salvaged woods, worn out gun spare parts, pipes, used out materials to convey their struggles against racial resistance and cultural challenge. Whatever happened to the classical standard of art that dominantly display aesthetic images? They are no longer found as criteria to make art as art. Today, art has been profoundly used as tool to be heard. Artist movements may be judged as radical to most people. Yet, somehow, their speaking gallery of pictures and loud colors in canvasses chorused with the shrieks from the lifeless forms laid out to form a masterpiece is something to behold. They speak of lasting impression that words can not define, nor can their meaning be caged to absolute formulas. These arts influence minds, evokes emotions, promotes ideas, and demonstrates power. For whether they are effective or not, they are judged in accordance to people’s reaction afterwards. Works Cited Hughes, Robert. A Fiesta of Whining. Time Magazine, March 22, 1993. Print Barbara Kruger (b. 1945) ‘”Taking” Pictures’. Ideas of Postmodern. Print Appendix Read More