/lit/ - Literature

>>9914995
>Art is meant to capture history, culture and a shared consciousness of society.
This is like saying a fish should swim. It can't help but swim, and art can't help but reflect society. Modern art does this particularly well, reflecting back a consumer, capitalist society (in the west anyway).

>>9914995
>Art should clarify what is misunderstood, raise questions and portray paradoxes. Therefore, Art needs to be accessible and understood.

This describes some art, but not a lot of it. Much of contemporary art reflects society through genre convention and unconscious knowledge. It does not need to be understood to be effective.

Pic related, "Shuttlecocks" by Oldenburg, one of the most popular sculptures in my city. People regularly have wedding photos taken in front of these. They're all over post-cards. Whenever a reality TV show or sporting event occurs in KC, these sculptures are shown as some kind of iconic KC landmark.

Does anyone understand them? No. They are felt subconsciously, a larger than life, hyper-real representation of mass production. They are made of aluminum, but painted in a way they appear to be made of plastic. Plastic is the ideal, unreal medium, having no organic reference point. They are capitalism embodied, but just like capitalism, no one understands them. They are perfectly natural. Could a tiger understand the jungle? He would need to see the ocean first. Similarly, you can't understand these as the height of capitalist art without seeing what past cultures have made.

>>9903196
>Not him but whats the point of removing statue of controversial figures? It doesn't erase what they did
>>9903196
I think the question your asking is 'what is the purpose of public art?'. Historically, it's been used by governments and churches to reflect ideology.

So iconoclasm, desecration, whatever you want to call it, the destruction of public art objects, is an ideological aggression. It's an attempt to make visible a shift (or desired shift) in politics. This is why ISIS destroys temples, this is why east european countries tear down statues of Lenin, this is why leftists tear down statues of confederates.

Today's public art tends to be either industrial minimalism or pop art, and that is because it reflects the dominant ideology of capitalism. Pic related, probably the most prominent public art sculpture in my city, Kansas City. I look forward to the day when the mob tears it down.