The art of kashmir
For my third individual event, I went to the Asia Society to see their exhibit of the Art Of kashmir. What I saw there was a ton of religious art. I have wrote previously on the blog about art and religion. What I saw was a misunderstanding of religion and art yet again. Most of what the museum showed as art were actualy religious articles from many diffirent religions. I think that there is a level of egocentricity by the curator to take something which is sacred to one religion and then parade it around in a museum and write it off as art. Art has to have purpose. The artist must want it to be art for it to be considred art. If the artisan who created a certain artifact for sacred use, it should be regarded as a sacred artifact. It is a disgrace for any religious artifact to be shown in a museum as art. It ios also a misrepresentation of the artifact. Representing it as art is simply wrong. It was not supposed to be art and just because it was crafted by a skilled artisan does not make it art.
Contrary to what many art enthusiast would like to think, art must respect other people. Art must have bounds. One day the ideological pendulum will swing back to the right, and people will stop appreciating the disgrace of religion and values by art. In order for art to be respected it must change. Artists must denounce the next Mapplethorpe to insure that there will be another one.
December 12th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
oh boy - this is gonna be a converation:
I tend to disagree on your point about religious articles not being art. First, sacred religious articles should definitely be treated with respect, but I do not think that there was any disrespect meant in displaying religious articles in a museum. I think there can be an inherent element of art in something even when the intention wasn’t to create a piece of art. if artistry and craftsmanship was used in its creation, then that artistry and craftsmanship is worth noting and celebrating. especially if creating these religious articles is what the craftsman dedicated his life to I am sure there is a certain amount of pride and connection he feels to the artistic nature of crafting the object, especially if he is dedicated to making religious things that are beautiful for a sacred purpose, surely that is an art form deserving of the most respect and admiration and should be on a pedestal in a museum. if there is something that is so important and significant in one’s life then it should be done in the best way it can be done and the objects needed for it should be as beautiful and well made as they can be - and the way for that to happen is through art.