The word “art” has in contemporary society become a good strategy for selling products without their proper value. To give a value and a definition to this word, society augments it with others words which then become the main concern. However, as the word “art” takes value upon its own shoulders, purporting to contain all of the following: creativity, imagination, novelty, etc. which easily lures followers, the second word becomes its shadow. However, the word is mostly used with relation to production, that is, something that can be seen thorough or conceptually thought through. But one never stops to question all this external value that valorizes the meaning of art only in relation to production, which would bring final results.
Therefore, art became a vehicle for something else and it constantly pushes forward in order to gain something. Of course, this brings us to another question: as beings, we always want some result, some final stage. But if we look at it from another perspective and change its value without the expectation of any result, what do we gain? What would happen that if we were to say: “Hey, You! Look at the work of art with its own uniqueness that has been created just once as YOU, why don’t you create yourself over, why don’t you see an art piece in yourself, why don’t you live as a piece of art?”
Why don’t you live as art? This question will arise as so many questions regarding art do: What is then truly art? How to live as art? Is it possible to live as art? Of course, if we consider that life in itself is art, that in some sense it’s a process of autopoiesis, you are in it also as a piece of art. Why don’t you try to live as art?
If you just want to look at yourself, by all means look; in seeing yourself you will also notice the art in you, that you have a unique face, fingers, movements, gesture, poses and so on. And all of it belongs to you and only to you. Moreover, we can say that life as art would be a life in which each piece of art (each being) would see in itself an art piece and respect itself as much as it respects others. I can hear the rejection of this thought: but each individual respects himself. Yes, each individual respects himself or herself if the question of disrespectful behavior is raised but what we mean here by the word respect is that each movement of life, each act of life, is respected and valued to the highest degree, as one attempts to do so in different situations, in all situations. The most noticeable would be seen in small acts, for instance in how one dines when one is alone and how one dines in the company of guests. Of course, that is a very simple example in order to express that in our everyday life we behave primarily with more respect to others than to ourselves.
To live and see a piece of art in ourselves would be life with all its content. One can say that even drinking water can be art: “Hey, You! Being, (art piece), who drinks this water, and precisely this water with full awareness of it and with its movements through your mouth and into your internal world, feel it, taste it, see it”. One single spot, one single movement, one brushstroke changes the whole meaning of the painting and it is the same with you. Look at yourself, see an artwork in YourSELF!
To live as art with full awareness that this is your life and only life, with its own beauty and with its non-beauty, which is in itself still beauty, and to live and to notice life as art that gives you a chance to see art in yourself and in every step of your life, to create, to recreate yourself. Art in everything, not only in galleries, museums, concert halls, but everywhere. If you just once, stop in one corner of one place, and watch, you will see life is art and each person in it is also art, a piece of art, a small puzzle piece, part of a masterpiece. Live as art!
Text and pictures by V.B.
