It's often said of artistic works that they "take risks" or of the creative process that it requires getting "out of the comfort zone." There are also people (less likely to be the high-critic type) who seek out works that entertain and comfort them without challenging too much.
Likewise, there's a broad range of taste out here regarding how much risk is appropriate in one's life. Of course, on THIS stage a wrong note/flubbed line/misstep could lead to limitless bad consequences (and not only for the person making the choices.)
Of course, a lot of great art concerns itself with depicting people's lives, too. Some people videoblog practically everything they do, now. Others have paparazzi to do it for them. And the basic urge to live life in a way that inspires or informs or transforms others is an urge much older than those phenomena.
This is left very open to try to elicit musings and heartfelt comments.
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9 comments:
Perhaps a religious life could be thought of as "life as art" with an audience of One.
Then again, many "vie boheme" pitfalls for artists come from youth believing in a stereotype of "the artist's life".
I find this second comment intriguing--are there really people who think the artist's life is...hmm, seems like I'd better make a post. Thanks for the new path!
It strikes me that the notion/phenomenon of the artist's life as something unique/special/highly desirable has a long history. Including lots of personal disasters. As I recall, much was affirmatively made of it in the 19th century. It also finds itself stuck inside words like bohemian, avant-garde, the beat generation. That history suggests that the notion is potentially influential and harmful, for it suggests a way of life that for many has been detrimental even corrupting.
As for today, it's still out there in the culture, including operations at the unconscious level; and if the roots of the concept are long and deep enough, the phenomenon can easily go undetected in oneself.
Here are some fellows who say "art is life, life is art." But, I do not think that it means what they think that it means.
http://in.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idINEIC85725820080428
I read the article noted and come away thinking they have been a little vague in describing Art is Life/Life is Art (anagram of words??). Generally the word host connotes a voluntary role, yet hosting lice is usually involuntary and to prolong this 'hosting' is extremely unnatural. Is art unnatural? Is it natural? Is that question even relevant?
Zay Smith's QT column summed up the lousy art this way:
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Israeli museum curator Milana Gitzin-Adiram regarding a work of art that consists of six men living in a museum gallery for three weeks with lice in their hair:
"Art is life. Life is --"
Oh, be quiet.
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No, keep talking.
If one thing is everything, and everything is one thing--there is no difference. All is all.
Perhaps it depends on what "is" is. Pass the glob anyone?
I'll be quiet.
From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no man lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.
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