The essence of art - Essay Example

This is the major point in the insights of Arthur Danto, an art philosophy scholar, as revealed in his conversation with Suzi Gablik. Danto’s written work on the disenfranchisement of art brought about by the customary practice of what is deemed as an ‘enfranchising maneuver’ by placing art pieces in museums and galleries to make them readily acceptable as art. Basically being able to make divine something that is utterly banal. “What disenfranchisement does is to get art to internalize the idea that it’s not supposed to do anything.

It doesn’t make anything happen” (Gablik, p.247). This is a noticeably true characteristic that is perceptible in the art world. The basic premise of what art must do is an abstract idea that many have written extensively about. To name a few widely acceptable notions, art must transform, it must translate beauty, it must evoke what is real in the world, and it should even move people to action would just be naming a few. But all of these, singularly or all taken together are really more ideas within the realm of possibilities and quite a few have actually turned them to reality.

This brings us forth to the issue of advocacy in art. As one raised question in the talked about Whitney Biennial in the book, “When art has a social or political agenda or takes an activist stance, is its aesthetic quality or integrity compromised?” (ibid, p.267). This taking on an activist stance is blaringly obvious in the photographs of Terri Warpinski. The photography professor at the University of Oregon primarily takes scenes depicting nature and juxtaposed evidence of conflict in a number of controversial places.

The photographs of Boyhood (two narratives) shows two pictures placed side by side both depicting the irony in the title and of the scene. The most striking on the left hand photo is the poster above the door of what could very well be a mosque or any other public place. In the poster, a boy at a relatively young age is confidently holding a high-powered gun raising it so that the ammunition points up. Another poster is on the lower left side of the picture with faces of men in a collage. Though the writings are unintelligible because they are in Arabic, they suggest an atmosphere of sinister assertiveness.

It is also quite intriguing trying to decipher what the pictures mean and why are they posted especially since considering the scale, it can be concluded that they are substantially large. The second picture on the right is the one where the irony is very recognizable. In here we see the body of two older men who seem to be in an exchange, again a high-powered firearm, where the man holding it looks like he is the buyer and is testing its capability. The juxtaposition is in front of the two men where toys for children are displayed for sale in what looks like an ordinary market.

The vividness of the pink, red and blue balloons hanging from the top along with the plastic balls and other items easily suggests there is something deeply wrong in this picture. What it denotes and consequently gives a chilling effect is that the man holding the gun could very well be buying it for his son and that instead of a balloon, a ball or some other knick knack for a toy, he opted to give him a real gun instead. The suggestive tone of Warpinski’