By BARTON BUND

Art is ultimately unprofitable. It is a lousy investment. Artists and organizations tend to do better while they are in their flux state, an inspirational state. The condition of being inspired can be momentary or lifelong, and by nature, people in this state are irrational and impractical. Art is frivolous. And yet, art can flourish in times of adversity.

Laws and moral codes have been bent and broken in service of great art. Our society's approach has generally been to protect the art, if not the artist. An artist who commits a heinous crime is often still allowed to live and create.

Art is essential to a culture's identity, and to its sense of right and wrong. Art is essential to a culture's sense of taste, its sense of what is good or bad, its sense of sensuality, beauty, spirituality. Art reflects a culture's sense of self-worth. A culture's humanity is connected to its artistic freedoms.

A culture or system without artistic freedom is bereft of individuality. Without creative freedom, the value of the individual, and the grand collective of individuals, is spritually or psychologically diminished. Take away the freedoms of artists, and a society becomes secretive, untrustworthy, uncivilized. Without a broad, diverse culture of art, societies can disappear, blown over by wind and sand. Art is essential to how we understand one another, how we understand history. God, nature, our own nature, and our past and future, are all tied up in our art.

Art is not immoral. Nor is it moral. It exists in a place beyond morality. It can shed light on morality, and moral systems. It can shed light on love, death, friendship, government, war, and other moral realms. An artist is often given leave to venture outside of conventional morality. In the service of art, an artist can live outside of the law.  

Art is not found in tangible objects. Art is not the painting itself. Art exists in the space between the object and the observer. Art only exists in the mind. Art is not really there, and requires a degree of faith or belief, even to see it. Art is a thing one experiences, even if one does not always understand it. It is not necessary to understand a thing to experience it.

Art exists in time. Once it is created, it exists outside of the artist. The artist is in one world, and the art is now in another. How it finds its value among a culture depends on the conditioning of its citizens. An artist is not responsible for the experience that the viewer has. The art itself is abstract, and irresponsible. When art is displayed in its raw state, unchanged and un-amended, without commentary, the artist is then only responsible for what comes next. The sequels or encores that come next often determine the artist's ethics. When they repeatedly commit the same artistic act, perhaps we can begin to determine the morals of the artist.  

The private life of an artist is important. We sometimes have to look at an individual's behavior, not just their work. Sometimes the behaviors and actions of the artist supercede their work. But the art and the artist are ultimately separate. During an artist's life, their private acts will always be examined. The public wants to establish a connection between the art and the artist, and they may get it wrong. Only the artist knows, and they may not fully understand it themselves.

An artist chooses various paths. Aesthetic and political paths. Art is not always political, but can become influential in political action, with or without the artist's consent. Political campaigns or other movements may embrace and use a population's most beloved art as a way of creating a connection with the people. The success of the campaign or movement can be assessed and examined through the art that is used. The songs of a political campaign, the imagery created and used, can be very persuasive.

However, using art for political or monetary gain is problematic. When art is used in politics, it may forever carry certain baggage. Art is damaged by politics.

Art that is created for political purposes may succeed politically, but may lack aesthetic value. When art contains a message, even a hidden message, then the art itself is diminished. The message may come through, and the artist can be successful, if that was their intent.

An artist need not be a decent human being. Artists are not required to be good or bad. But the art must be of some value in order for the artist to claim any special rights or privileges. An artist is often given permission to behave worse than the rest of us. Artists are looked to as rebels, as iconoclasts, and that can lead to some questionable choices. The artist is still a person, and is subject to the same laws as everyone else. Yet we often let the artist go. We would rather keep a wild person on the loose if they create art of real value.

At points in the life of an artwork, the art must be looked at separately from its own genre or type. It must be seen not as part of a movement, but evaluated on its own, for its own beauty and its flaws. Artists may embrace or reject other art. Art that has come before, or comes about at the same time, has to be set aside at a certain point. An artist need not pay homage nor respect to other art. And the viewer need not consider the art as part of any movement or other system. The art is, ultimately, an individual creation. Thousands of painters may live in a city, using similar styles and techniques, but their work is not just a part of a collective. Style is not always important. The experience is the thing that matters. Each individual artwork is created by each individual artist, and contains its own soul, its own programming and information.

Art as information

Art, like any system, is made up of information. Each spot of paint, each note of music, works in relation to every other. And if what we say is true, and that art only exists between the object and the observer, then information is transmitted between the two entities. This information cannot be fully collected, and cannot be truly understood. We cannot define why we enjoy art. The observer therefore has the right, in certain societies, to take in whatever art they prefer. In free societies, the observer retains the right to like what they like.

When art is restricted by law or social norms, the individual becomes damaged. The art is still created, secretly, but may not see its full audience. The individual is restricted as well, and only sees what he or she is permitted to see. Just as the artist is restrained. When art must be approved or legally sanctioned, the art, or the information contained in it, must come through in secret underground ways.

Innovative art breaks conventions. It will always inspire anger in some, and joy in others. It will be controversial. It will divide the audience, and become a point of argument. The painting that stirs debate is no longer the issue, however. The painting, or book or song, is over. When information is transmitted from art to observer, the observer will transmit the information to others. The others may or may not have ever seen the same artwork. But new information is passing.

The art takes on a life of its own, outside of itself. It grows and mutates into a greater monster. The monster is us, however. The torrent of passion and debate is a force outside of the work. Art is there to be interpreted, and the critical mind will do its best to make sense out of all abstract things. We awaken from dreams with a desire to understand them. When we understand our own dreams, we better understand ourselves. Art has the same power as the dream does, to clarify our own fears and desires.  

Art occurs to the brain in the same way our dreams do. We watch a film like we watch our own dreams. And in an age when film proliferates our culture, our dreams can take on a filmic quality. The information is received in the same place. Art can provoke a physical response, just like our dreams can. Art, and dreams, may not actually have any meaning at all. The meaning we assign to them when we observe them, that has tremendous weight.

Art is blamed for all kinds of behaviors. A friend once told us that reading Eat, Pray, Love made her want a divorce. Heavy Metal bands have been seen as dangerous to children. Video games containing violence are viewed with suspicion. When children begin developing artistic tastes of their own, their parents often get very concerned. And so it is entirely possible that art, and the experience we have with it, can lead to strange behaviors. Art gives us permission to experience new things. All kinds of new things. But the artist, no matter what their intent was, ought not to be blamed for what we do.

The artist in America has been granted the freedom to create what he or she wants. Our First Amendment is a wonderful thing. Our Constitution is a list of information, and is thereby art as well. There is a reason our Constitution was written in an elegant hand. The law is art. The law is a story to be interpreted. If art is information, then information is also art. If art is that which we can view and engage with, then anything that transmits information can be viewed as art. So any source of information can be put under scrutiny.