Art is dead, long live Art

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All things must come to an end. This is my last post. Thanks for reading and for sharing your thoughts.
Oh, and before any one reads too much into this post… I’m fine.
Just saying.

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Recently, a self-proclaimed photo artist, was lamenting that art is dead and blaming art’s demise on the profusion of technology which has apparently diluted photographic art into a quagmire of hipster-filtered, low resolution snaps.

Whatever.

To mourn’s art’s passing, if it has indeed passed away, seems to me to be somewhat enigmatic or at least puzzling. Hasn’t art died a thousand deaths? With every new age, with every new, world-changing discovery hasn’t art died only to be reborn in some new form perhaps with a new message but always with the same intent… to exist for its own sake?

If Art is dead then I can only say, long live Art.

I can, albeit reluctantly, imagine a future where still photography will go the way of cave paintings and etchings. But the death of still photography as an art form would not mean the death of art. For me art has a life of its own. It creates itself and re-invents itself using some providential humans (who we end up calling artists) as its channel. All I am saying is, art forms die but art is eternal.

And life is a lot like art.

From the moment we are born we are given but one guarantee and that is that we will… one day… die. Of all the potential and possibilities that life holds for us at birth, death is one that will not be denied. I do not wish to make light of death, its arrival is always sad and all too often tragic but death or at least the promise of death holds a gift that few people appreciate before it is too late.

Art, especially photography where I am concerned, offers the same gift but death adds a sense of urgency to it. In science as in philosophy there is much talk of things that never go beyond the conceptual or theoretical but as our world view changes with new findings, as our perceptions change to see things under a different light – so much so sometimes, that we wonder how we ever saw it any other way – no “fact” is as certain as death. Well… for now at least. And death is personal, death is ours to own. When it is our time to die no one can die for us.

And so, if I am the one to die then I am the one to live.

And therein lies death’s gift. Death makes everything in life matter. Everything. Every aspect, every breath, every emotion, every feeling, every thought. I may give myself other reasons why certain things matter to me but it is the promise of death that makes all of it matter. At this point, if you happen to go along with my premise it can be tempting to go down the well worn path trodden by so many self-help gurus where you re-assess your life and get all new-age and reborn, quit your job, move to another country, go on a diet, start exercising, write a bucket list or whatever but I do not see that as necessary to make the most of the gift that’s being offered. When a gift is offered I like to give something back, in this case, I like to give life my full attention. Whatever it throws at me. What I try to do is be aware of every little thing regardless of what it is. Photography has helped in this respect. Over the years photography has made me more attentive, more cognizant and not just of the things around me but also of all the thoughts and feelings going on internally.

But here is the peculiar thing, as awareness grows something ever so subtle happens. I can only describe it as a kind of detachment, not in terms of feeling separate from it all but rather like a realization that I do not need to take any of it personally. I do not make the photograph, I am not in the photograph, I am, the photograph. Nonsense to be sure but I do not know how to express it any other way. The ego may well feel somewhat cheated by this but there is a certain sense of freedom associated with this awareness. It’s just… not… personal. Perhaps not even death it would seem.

Life, just like art, never dies of course. It is only the stories that end; the stories of us, the stories of species, the stories of cultures, the stories of civilizations, the stories of forests and cities, of worlds and stars and gods. Life, however, creates itself, invents itself with new stories unfolding eternally and always with the same intent… to exist for its own sake.

Just. Like. Art.