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Social Uses of
the Notion of Art
Vytautas Kavolis
Professor and Chairman of the Department
of Sociology and Anthropology at Dickinson College. He is the author of Artistic
Expression: A Sociological Analysis and
History on Art's Side: Social Dynamics in
Artistic Efflorescences.
1
Art, we might assume, is created because
people are interested in it. But why are
people interested in art? Or, conversely,
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2
Conceived in this manner, the notion of art
may well be the single most potent invention in the whole history, and prehistory,
of human imagination, far more potent than
any specific works embodying it. (And
more enduring , since the notion of art can
be continuously retained even in a society
that does not preserve a single one of its
products embodying this notion, e.g.,
where body decoration is the prevailing
art.)
3
If the generalized notion of art is socially
useful, why is it being abandoned by so
many contemporary artists? Why does it
seem to be losing its plausibility precisely
for the people who have been generating
and regenerating it for ages? Is this a part
of the wholesale repudiation by avantgarde artists of everything utilitarian?
The notion of art, forged in the practice of
generations of imaginative workers, is
undermined by the experience of masses
of industrial and bureaucratic workers.
It seems that, in advanced industrial
societies, only in personal relations and in
certain kinds of ideological politics-but
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4
What happens when (or where) the generalized notion of art loses its plausibility?
One would assume that the impact on
society would be a reduced trust in the
Richard Karwosky
The Barn
oil 1971
367
Jacob Landau
Robert Gwathm ey
Tin of Lard
For art, I would expect the followi ng consequen ces of a decline in the genera lized
notion of art:
1. Whatev er art is intende d to exp ress, it
increas ingly expres ses its own imposs ibility.
2. Since such art ceases to be ontolog ically and morally signific ant, sponta neous
interes t in art decline s (or is investe d in
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369
5
It is in the short-run interest of art interpreters to promote artistic ideologies
which render their own work more exciting than that of the artists whose products
they interpret. The spread of "antiartistic" ideologies among contemporary
artists, perhaps especially among those
educated in the universities, represents, to
a high degree, the increasing domination
of art interpreters over the artists, an effort
(whether intended or not) to transform the
latter into a means for enhancing the
cultural significance of the former (an
exact analogy to the use of artists by the
merchants of culture as a means for
enriching themselves). Art interpreters, by
the logic of the operation of their profession, are bound to place themselves among
the destroyers of the generalized notion of
art (just as culture merchants, in a mass
market, do)-unless they have an ethical
commitment to its preservation.
6
Is it impossible today to achieve what the
generalized notion of art postu lates, or
merely incredible, in spite of occasional
evidence to the contrary, that such things
could be done by artists-or by anyonein an advanced industrial society?
370