Friday 20 May 2011

UTOPIAN ART – IS IT POSSIBLE IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY?



Utopian art is a reflection of the society we live in. Utopian art could be a good art, or no art at all (if we follow the double meaning of the word Utopia). Utopian art is not about making better art, more suitable for contemporary needs of humanity, nor to make the world a better place engaging with a concept of ideal art. Utopian art could be a contribution or attempt to preserve constructive creativity and art production in any technological civilization. It provides the human existence and continuation of upgrading the materialistic human society. In the process of rebuilding a contemporary society, and by rebuilding I mean urban development and regeneration of urban (public) space, the utopian art integrates the modes of verbal-visual expression with the elements of postmodern narrative. If the regeneration of the city could be understood as an utopian attempt to rebuild the society as a better place, then the purpose of the utopian art would be to humanize the city as a collective environment of vital human existence. The main question would be if the utopian art can exist at all, or if utopian art can only represent the utopian idea/concept of itself instead of having an active involvement in the society. Could be that utopian art is making ground zero of contemporary art history nowadays? Following Plato's categorization of citizens in his Republic (as a first recorded utopian proposal), the similar concept of a class structure could be applied to arts. Could be that arts within the concept of utopian art are going to be classified according to its purpose and general contribution to the human existence? Would the utopian art be just a foundation for creating a unique art production that will support social development in the future cities dictated by the economy? It seems that Utopian art, as an independent division within the philosophical idea of Utopia, is a necessity rather than hypothetical ideal that could never actually exist, but only to serve as a critique on contemporary society. At the same time, the utopian art could be a construct of the conceptual idea in a mission to overcome its own idealization and become artistic extreme for a reason to establish a new social order.


1 comment:

  1. if you create a term like 'utopian art' you are aligning concept of utopia with a social, political, and economic condition in the present - 'Art'. By conceiving of a utopian art, you eradicate any utopian possibility by creating a politic within a politic within a historical genre. - this contradicts the human potential of utopia. Utopia is already widely used as a theoretical model in art practice and design, where it has never been needed to be established as a realized sub-genre. For example the excellent and practical use of utopia in Baudrillard's writings for the group "Utopie".

    ReplyDelete