There Is No Higher Truth

By Rachael Wilkinson
February 24, 2013

          There are many requirements for art to be Art: it has an “aura”, it must be experienced live to be true, l’art pour l’art, etc. There are a dizzying number of theorists attempting to label and understand exactly what is art and why it exists. Inevitably these broad statements and overcooked theories end with a supposition that there is some great, universal Truth inherent in art. Art communicates a base and pure emotion that all beings understand and can only be expressed artistically.  This concept of Truth is incredibly important to those who subscribe to the idea, yet when individually examined, it is incredibly divisive and contradictory.

            For argument’s sake, let us suppose this Truth does exist, and see where that argument goes. Whether a visual piece or a performance, the very nature of art is subjective.

Take a painting for example. Curators have long struggled with the issue of presenting art on the walls of a museum. Should the piece be near its contemporaries, or juxtaposed with dissimilar works? Should the walks behind it be painted or plain, how close should the piece be to another work? Ultimately these decisions are made to express the curator’s vision – which is not a Truth. It is a series of conclusions the curator wishes for us to draw, not the great, emotional Truth we previously discussed and certainly not the Truth of that particular piece of art.

            In fact, the only way to truly view the art as close as it could be to its Truth, would be standing with the artist, at the moment of its creation. Only that singular moment where the artist breathes life into the piece by announcing its completion contains the Truth of the piece, provided also you are a contemporary and understand the context of the time and place.  And the artist has to tell you, within that same breath, what exactly that piece means. This could perhaps be feasible with performance art, assuming the performance is never repeated nor caught on camera.

            At this point, I want to assure the reader this is not a reduction to the absurd. Should any piece be repeated or recorded and replayed, it is instantly lifted out of the original conditions of its creations. At that point, it has new context and new meaning – and perhaps a new Truth.

            The artist Rachel Sussman more eloquently describes the lack of Truth in art and science,

But, most importantly, the work is never meant to exist in a vacuum: whether it’s receiving a vaccine or being moved by a painting, it is the audience that completes the picture.

The insistence upon a Truth denies the life experiences and contexts brought to viewing a work of art by the audience. This great, emotional Truth supposedly within all of us might actually be within all of us, but we need to acknowledge it is not a Truth but many different truths. Life experiences remain unshared and no one can truly understand how another feels about a work of art - unless it becomes a discussion.

            The idea that there is but one Truth that can be derived from a work is ridiculous. If anything, a work that one can only derive one meaning from is not art at all. It’s advertising. Whether a billboard on the street or a video before the contents of your Hulu queue, commercials are built around cultural similarities that convey but one message. It can be “buy my product” or attempting to clean up a public relations nightmare – it’s still a singular message, an understandable Truth, that all viewers surmise.

            Which returns us to this idea of a discussion created by works of art. It is fairly important, because if there is no Truth, how can we ever experience commonality. If we share nothing in common with others, society falls apart and you die lonely in your basement with cats. Art attempts to circumvent this societal downfall by sparking the discussions that explain and elucidate the different truths we each understand from a work of art.

            In the end, there is no higher Truth that art brings to all, and I think it’s intellectually lazy to believe otherwise. Anything with only one message or truth is commercial. Art can challenge us, cause us to question our own belief systems, and move us profoundly – yet there is only one great, emotional Truth? Most who value art will argue that experiencing different ways of thinking inspires growth. Art can be used to celebrate what makes each of us unique, while teaching us what makes everyone else unique as well. If we can accept we all experience art differently, we can grow as a culture.