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KNOW	INTERVIEWS

Is Art Important?

ForYourArt asks some of our favorite people

Over the past few months alone, we have watched the debate in Congress over the NEA money, we’ve seen beloved museums admit their struggling circumstances and we’ve marveled as new exciting public art projects and communities of culture have stepped up to inspire and initiate conversation. As part of our ongoing series, Is Art Important?, FYA has been asking artists, writers, curators, museum directors, politicians and musicians the age-old question that’s on everyone’s mind...

Hans Ulrich Obrist

A: As Gilbert and George say, 'To be with art is all we ask.' I mean that's really the most serious answer I can give.

But art is a very multidimensional thing, so I cannot give only one answer. As in quantum physics, there are parallel realities in art. One of the dimensions or models is a toolbox, a nonfunctional and ambiguous toolbox. Art is antennas. 'Art is art and everything else is everything else.' – I think that's Ad Reinhardt. Art is a great home base to venture from. It is impossible to say what art is because art always changes what we expect from it–that would be another sort of dimension. Art is the reason to get up in the morning. Art is the reason not to go to sleep.

Frederic Tuten

A: When Andy Warhol was asked what was art, he said, "Isn't that a guy's name?" It was an evasion, but I understand why. Almost anything you could say about art–why it is important or what it means–is doomed to sounding pretentious. With that risk in mind, I say that at the least art modifies, ameliorates the hardships, the sadness of life, and at best, it gives us joy as nothing but love can. In that sense, I think love and art are akin.

Okwui Enwezor

A: Art is precisely important because it's completely useless; it does not require a reason to exist, and that's why it's absolutely spectacular.

Marilyn Minter

A: It shines a light on life.