New Art Center – Proposal for a Village’s City Hall
Dear Mayor and Dear Counselors,
We live in the 21st century, the age of speed, of technological breakthrough, of continuous innovation and outstanding gadgets meant to improve our lives and make them more dynamic and more fun. This is all good, it represents a good aspect for the development of our lifestyle and for easing our existence as a species, facilitating the progress. The fact that society is orienting towards this direction worldwide creates the feeling of a global innovation driven village, wherein people quickly develop common interest for the same aspects, when it comes to new gadgets, new features in IT products and services. In this environment, where the focus is to being present and thinking ahead, forecasting new technologies, something seems to be missing.
Young people, who are the main target of the IT products and services, know more about the new technologies, in terms of software and hardware than they know about common sense notions and they assimilate the IT related information much faster than they could assimilate the mathematical formulas, novels or poems, and anything else thought in school.
This is why I think, dear Audience, that a youth focused art center could be really helpful for our community. The teenagers need to be exposed to art, in order to understand a new sense of life and of spirit. Getting closer to art is a form of sensitizing them, of getting them closer to their emotions.
Art has always been considered a form of relaxation, of finding the inner person. For teenagers, who are more and more trapped in virtual, viral worlds, an art center could be very helpful for this purpose. Moreover, this can also represent an inspirational source1 for them, which can determine them to let got their imagination, to express their feelings freely, through creating art themselves.
Nowadays, youngsters are very reticent to art, but as we all know, most of them rapidly embrace the new technological breakthroughs. For changing their perception upon arts, I suggest that the new art center from our town to have weekly exhibitions of artistic technological developments. By this approach we can express the statement that art is not against technology, is not resisting the innovation. On the contrary, art is in everything that we do, including in IT. But if we want to fully develop, we must take into consideration the fact that there are also other art forms. We cannot simply say that we do not like them or we disagree with them, before we know what are they, what they represent, what they express.
The fact that youngsters are so into technology and IT products and programs is because the environment, the media is promoting them permanently. Mass media does not do the same thing with culture, with arts. This is a disadvantage for the artistic movement nowadays and for the continuity of the aesthetic sense that arts create for the society.
For society, the aesthetic is very important, because it creates an environment suited for relaxation, for calming the mind, an environment in which people can be more creative and express their ideas, feelings and believes more openly. We need to encourage media to promote this center, in order to determine the teens to desire to come and visit the place and to desire to get to know more about the pieces exhibit in this center. We need to create this center a “must see” place.
The art lovers circle gets smaller every day and we need to change this through our action of launching this new center. This can serve as a model for other communities and together we can initiate a new art movement.
Beyond dreaming, we are realistic and we understand that not all the teenagers that will be exposed to the artistic pieces that will be exhibited in this art center will embrace arts. In fact, art is not about this, because through its specificity it has always represented a niche. What we intend to do is to let people know art still exists and if one out of ten people who sees the artistic creations are inspired by one single piece, or if one in one hundred people who visit the art center smiles, crunches, or cries when he/she sees a painting or a sculpture, than the purpose of this art center is reached. The idea is to allow people to choose whether they want to dedicate their time to visiting the art center or specific exhibitions, or not. But in order for them to have this liberty to choose, they must be first informed about it.
I remember when I first visited Louvre some time ago and I entered the red room of paintings, which impressed me greatly because the entire room was painted dark red and the paintings had golden frames. There it was, on the right, just as I entered the room and I had the chance to take a quick glance to the overall room, something that attracted me like a magnet. It was Paul Delaroche’s painting – “Napoleon Crossing the Alps”2. I did not know what it was with this particular painting, and I still do not know exactly not even now, but this is good, because I am still trying to understand, by analyzing it whenever I have the chance.
The moment I saw it, I burst into tears. I could not control my emotions, which were larger than me, as I was in the presence of a force of nature. I felt the painters’ feelings when he had created this painting. He chose to express Napoleon, one of the greatest warriors and military leaders of all times, in a humanly manner. Unlike others painters who have surprised this moment, setting Napoleon as a demi – good, Delaroche chose to illustrate him as a man, who, in the middle of the Alps, surrounded by snow and snow storm, was just a man, not a hero. He too, was overwhelmed by the force of nature and even him, the great Napoleon could not fight it. He just passed through the mountains, trough the snow, keeping his posture, but expressing the sensation of cold and tiresome, just like any of his soldiers. Despite this, his look was still vivid and lucid, illustrating his leadership position.
I sensed all these feelings at once and I could not control my emotions and I still remember the sensation that I had back then with great pleasure, as one of the milestones of my life. For me, it was Delaroche’s painting of Napoleon crossing the Alps. For Jenny, my 16 years neighbor, there can be a modern sculpture. For her friend, Daniel, there can be a photography which can provoke him powerful emotions that could make him see the life differently, to sudden understand a new perspective upon things. Either way, it is my strong conviction that everybody can resonate with art. It would be a shame for a person to be deprived of such powerful sensations just because he/she did not know of the existence of a specific art piece.
Art is about enriching the spirit, seeing beyond the perceptible. Art is a link between history, society, politics and individual. From antiquity, it had contributed to conserving the human spirit and in the same time in developing it3. The influences from the past, from a specific artistic movement can be utilized by the following artists and developed into new artistic movements. Art sustains the society and its development and the regular visitors of this art center could become the future sculpture of tomorrow, exhibiting his collection right in this center. Just imagine the representative of the following artistic current being brought to his artistic spirit after visiting this center!
We can involve the big actors from our community, public and private companies, to join a hand in our demarche of opening this art center. Likewise, we can access European funds from the specific sustainable developmental programs meant to enforce the rural areas, making them competitive structures of society.
Together we can create this and we, public and private institutions, NGOs, local communities, academic institutions, church, you, the representatives of the City Hall, parents and children, friends and families, we can all contribute to introducing an art center in our village, targeting mainly the teenagers, but being opened for everybody who wants to visit it and to reflect at the notions, motifs and themes expressed in different art representations.
References
Amendt – Lyon, Nancy. “Art and Creativity in Gestalt Therapy” Gestalt Review. Vol. 5, no. 4, 2001.
Artcyclopedia. Paul Delaroche. Retrieved on 9 May 2012 from http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/delaroche_paul.html.
Penner, Gwen, When Art and Spirit Meet. Krems, Donau University. 2008.
