A Thing of Beauty

A few days ago I posted that I had had an epiphany about what constitutes art. Tonight I went to see Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing Missouri with my spouse. I am so overwhelmed with the sheer beauty and artistry of that movie that I am compelled to finally put virtual pen to virtual paper about art.

Some people might claim that something is "art" because it evokes an emotional response in the viewer. It isn't about beauty, it's about the message and the visceral reaction. There is a scene in the Square where a floor cleaner accidentally sweeps up some gravel that is part of an exhibition made up of piles of gravel on the floor. The message that goes with the exhibition is that "you have nothing". Okay, fine. The artist had an idea that (s)he wanted to convey about the superficiality of our consumption-based lives or some such. And it might be a valid message. And the piles of gravel might be thought-provoking. But it's not art. An article in the Telegraph about the film just after it won the Palme d'Or at Cannes this year mentions the same scene and ties it to real-life:

"In one scene of the film, a cleaner sweeps away an art installation by West's character.

It echoes a real-life event in 2001, when an installation by Damien Hirst was thrown away by a cleaner at the Eyestorm gallery, London, who had mistaken the piles of full ashtrays, empty beer bottles and newspapers were the remnants of a party the night before."

Yeah, okay. ashtrays, beer bottles and newspapers arranged artistically are not art. They can be (and probably were intended to be in that instance) artistically arranged to maximize the statement--but that still doesn't make the installation art.

So what makes art? I believe that in art you can see the anima, the spirit force, the soul of the artist peeking through. There is something of the artist in the art--something more than a message. An installation can be as slick and polished as wet marble in its presentation, but that doesn't make it art. In fact the whole notion of an installation flies in the face of art to me.

And yet there was art in the movie The Square. It wasn't all mocking of modern art. The protagonist was a man who clearly believed passionately that the installations in the museum were art. He was sincere in his attitude that the art was in the presentation of the message. But a statement alone, a message alone is not art. Art can make a statement, but there has to be some art there, not just the statement. The movie was art--it had soul and life and humor and pathos. It made a statement about art in an artistic way.

Three Billboards is also a piece of art. The acting, the direction, the script, the music was all beautifully interwoven. I'm listening to Just Walk Away Renee by the Four Tops (one of the most powerful musical pieces in the film--and that's saying a lot as it's up against Townes Vandt and a beautiful operatic piece) right now as I write. I don't know if the movie has a message per se, but it pulls your heart from your body. It's one of those rare movies in which almost everyone is flawed, but you really care about them and can relate to them all anyway. In the course of writing this post I have watched the trailer below three times--and I just saw the movie. Soul. Anima. Art.