LIVING ART: BETWEEN ERRORS, VOCATION AND TRANSFORMATION

I wonder what the difference is between seeing works of art and living them. If a difference even exists. Art is not something you look at: it is something you undergo. It cuts through you. It unsettles you.

My cat lies down next to me. She is a work of art, I think. What would make her officially so, on the same level as a painting by Van Gogh or Banksy?

WHO DECIDES WHAT ART IS? A NAME, A MARKET, A MUSEUM? OR JUST A GAZE THAT SHIFTS EVERYTHING?

I’m not good with philosophical thoughts, so I write to my friend Ilaria, who in 2022 chose to study Cultural Heritage at Brera.

I don’t know if she knows more than I do, but I remember when we visited the Academy of Lovere together: with every painting, her eyes lit up at the hidden details she noticed..  MAYBE LIVING ART MEANS KNOWING HOW TO READ IT WHEN IT HIDES IN THE DETAILS.

The figure of the artist is in constant evolution. No job is carved in stone, and that of the artist least of all. Uncertainty becomes the daily bread when it comes to art, and I begin firing questions at Ilaria to find clarity. The artist lives in risk. The artist lives in transformation. To be an artist is to accept never having certainties.

I ask her what art is. “Something that shakes you,” she says. “Art leaves you speechless, but it makes you reflect.” ART IS SHOCK AND SILENCE. REFLECTION AND CHAOS. CONTRADICTION ITSELF.

“The artist can make mistakes,” she continues. “The computer cannot, and that’s why it will never replace the artist.” She explains that by making mistakes, the artist creates art. Indeed, without mistakes, Glitch Art would not even exist — the artistic movement that uses defects and imperfections to create content. Error is the secret code of art. The crack that becomes language. The flaw that turns into visual power.

Being an artist is a vocation. “You must follow it [the vocation] regardless of what others think, it’s a field where you have to give a thousand percent to make it a paid job.” IT IS NOT JUST A JOB: IT IS A RADICAL ACT. A CHOICE TO GIVE EVERYTHING, EVEN WHEN IT DOESN’T SEEM ENOUGH. ART IS NOT COMFORTABLE. IT IS TOTAL.