Guests

Thinking about the best way in which I could contribute to this conference, I came to the conclusion that for me as an artist, there are two important themes that I would like to speak about.

The first theme I would like to talk about is regarding the interaction between society and art, a theme of elementary significance answering the question if art can affect the society and if yes in which way. The second theme I would like to talk about is regarding the question of the figure and the role of the artist and the interpreter in the society.

Through my choice to set the main focus of my speech on these themes, I meet the decision to speak about culture from a somewhat more abstract point of view. The reason for this decision lies in the experiences I had the opportunity to make as an artist and arts pedagogue in different societies. The attempt to reduce in some cases very different societies and their qualities (especially their relationship to arts) to a common denominator on a practical basis, wouldn't do justice to it, so the only way out of this situation is exploring theoretically how do societies as abstract forms interact with art.

The aspect that brings my theme in the context of the title of this conference lies in the definition of the term "culture":

Referring to a society, it can be defined as "a state of intellectual development of a society".

Referring to an individual, the term "culture" stands for "a refined understanding and appreciation of art". Bringing these two definitions together from the point of view that "refined understanding" of arts without socially founded intellectual abilities isn't possible, we come to the point of bringing the society, the individual, the art and the culture to one common perspective.

Now, coming back to the first of my two main themes, I would like to begin with the question how do art and society interact and can art affect the society.

To the dislike of many artists and even sociologists, we have to accept the fact that theoretically a society without art could exist. But looking back through history, there never was a single society that made use of this theoretical possibility, existing in a "free of art" - state.

Since the point of time the art emerged on the face of this earth - and despite the fact that art is actually a product of the society, a mirror of its self-defining and self-reflection - there is more than just a tight bond between society and art. We can say that one of the basic factors that define art and society is their capability of interaction with one another. This interaction is a continual process that resembles a complex chain reaction: the society is being continually transformed through its own product - the art, and at the same time the art discovers its own anticipations in the social structures, so that every change of one element causes not only a change on its counterpart, but at the same time it transforms in this one move even the primary element that triggered the whole chain reaction. With every step this whole system is being set in motion and both society and art have the opportunity of taking turns in the role of being the subject or the object of this process. Visually speaking this process resembles a mirror-room, where one mirror reflects itself in the opposite one in an infinite progression.

Speaking about the quality of changes caused by this interaction of art and society, we have to be aware of the fact, that these changes don't have to correspond unconditionally in meaning and essence one with another. We can picture this process of changes as two parallel existing chains of events where changes can occur on this interactional base, but the development of each chain of events for itself - speak: art or society - doesn't have to be a product of an antagonism between the artistic and social interests, but a result of internal "conflicts", triggered by the development of the particular element. The higher goal of this correlation is the "perpetuum mobile" - character of this process causing the changes never to stop.

Coming to the second part of the question - can art truly affect the society?

The basic thought of the sociology of art is the fact that all our thinking, feeling and striving is focused on our actual existence in which we look into the face of facts, problems and questions while focusing our powers and capabilities to accomplish the tasks of our reality. Looking back at an elementary level, the art, just as well as the everyday practical life, have the common goal to find out how to recognise the true nature of this complex, mysterious and, just too often, truly challenging reality and finding the best ways of handling it. The works of art, together with our social experiences and intellectual capabilities represent a complex conglomeration of wisdom, so to say a treasury of experiences of existence, and thus, are inseparable part of the society in which they are embedded.

The fundamental quality through which the art effects the society lies in its capability of not only complementing pure intellectual knowledge in many fields, but even going further and outlining the frontiers behind which the pure intellect fails. The art has the ability of gaining knowledge beyond these abstract-logical boundaries in ways open only for the art. We could say that the art is a visionary signpost for the intellect.

One could criticize the statement made before by objecting that the art transforms, stylizes and idealizes the reality, and, yes, that is true, but on the other hand even the so objective science does practically the same by putting the reality in its own scientific structural and analytic categories. Nonetheless, both art and science are bound to the objective circumstances of the social reality and therefore are, strictly speaking, both objective in their presentation of it. At the same time this doesn't mean that there is no tension between the artistic vision and the empirical reality. It just underlines the postulate that no matter how stylized, abstract, fantastic or transformed a piece of art is, it arises from the sphere of human and social experience and not from the extra natural or super natural.

Referring once more to the origin of the art... Based on its origin from the sphere of human and social experience, arises the potential of art to exercise social criticism. The criticism of the society, its system, its institutions and its conventions is an ability of art given to it through the society itself. Works of art carrying this criticism are direct products of the social circumstances they criticise. The art reflects the impulses that it receives from the society in a transformed way, presenting the actual self-criticism of the society through the prism of the artistic.

In a similar manner, through the magnification of this process, art can even develop to an active social factor. The society sends out an impulse of, sociologically speaking, minimal dimensions and this small impulse once transformed and its message emphasized in the hands of art, returns to the society thousand-fold amplified, possessing the power to stir the society. This process can be socially stabilizing or destabilizing. On one hand art can arise to a motor of changes, carrier of revolutionizing thoughts and ideologies and on the other, it can develop to a common basis of understanding and tolerance pacifying antagonistic elements in the society.

Oscar Wilde said it's not the art imitating the life, but the other way around: the life is imitating the art. The essence of this aphorism is actually the critic that most members of the society are incapable of recognizing the true form and meaning of things until someone points them out. When the artist does so, it seems as if the life would be imitating his work and the art would not have any more the function of critic and correction of the reality, but would take the position of being the measure of all things and an ideal model for the reality. Through this mediation of art - this pointing out - the society develops a different consciousness and another perception of the natural and social elements surrounding it, thus hopefully opening its eyes and perceiving the complex interaction of art and society.

Following this theme of art and society, I would like to say a few words about the figure and the role of the artist and the interpreter in the society.

The common perspective in which the society imagines the artist is a picture of an individual characterised by a mystical aura of peculiarity and exceptionality. But actually it is a seldom constellation that produces an artist emancipated of social necessities and demandings. The common way an artist develops to be an artist is usually very similar to the way any other member of the society gets to be what he or she is, through accepting a specific role in the society and through establishing adequate relations within this society. It is more logical to assume that artistic activity is a result of social necessities and demandings which are to be answered, as to believe that it is an autonomous achievement looking for its social application.

Regarding the artist from the social aspect, we can say that he can't exist without his public. On the other hand he has an antagonistic relation to society, he is never a fully coherent part of this society due to the elementary principals each artist is associated with: individuality, spontaneity and originality. It is an astounding fact, that since the beginning of history the artist, despite the fact that his work is highly medial and practically in the spotlight of society, feels very often as an individual incapable of fully socialising with the society surrounding him, even more, he is someone who despite his dependence from the society, alienates himself from it. The reason for these antisocial feelings is a subjective one: the artist sees in each form of rigid organisation a danger for the artistic freedom, usually missing the point of recognising that art itself is an organisation containing spontaneous as well as conventional elements.

To speak about the interpreter has, for our theme, the same importance as to speak about the artist. The reason for that lies in the fact that a direct, spontaneous, enlightening comprehension of art through a receptive subject is a fictional idea based on mystification of artistic dispositions and a massive misjudgement of comprehensive capabilities.

Despite the fact that on one hand works of art meet specific stylistic forms and conventions, and on the other hand the art recipients also follow social codes that simplify the reception of the works of art, the reception and comprehension of art is almost impossible without a mediator, or more commonly spoken, without an interpret.

The most obvious case of the necessity of mediation in the art is the music. The composer's creation can only be seen as a series of abstract signs far away from any acoustic realisation of his work of art. The ordinary music fan hears and sees nothing artistic on a sheet of music. Music as an example for the necessity of mediation is very obvious, but also other fields of art are subjected to similar processes using the help of actors, critics, media and so on.

A work of art, in the form in which it leaves the hands of its creator is, sociologically speaking, unfinished. It reaches its final conclusion through the act of reception. No matter how spontaneous the artist wishes to express himself, he always needs mediation to be correctly understood. The continual changing of stylistic forms and their vocabulary makes the interpretation even more necessary, opening in this way new horizons of comprehension and artistic development.

At the end, several words concerning things to come.

We all see the massive and sometimes truly disturbing and even peace endangering changes and crises in which many societies of this planet are. Even the more stabile ones are not immune to these processes. In such times the feeling arises that the art withdraws to the margins of social happenings, suffering under elementary problems: the public has other, more existential problems, as to invest time into art, the society and its institutions are confronted with economical problems, thus investing less in art and culture and the artists as members of these same societies, carry this double-pack of problems looking at the same time for ways to refocus and move back to the nucleus of their existence, the art itself.

These words sound probably somewhat depressing, considering the fact that I am at the end of my speech, but it isn't like that: we should remember that history through the last several thousands of years, that means since the beginning of the civilized world, has proved that no matter what happens art never disappears. Its works survive millennia, outliving individuals, politics, wars and sometimes, they even outlive the societies in which they were created, standing as a living memory of their creators.