THE FOOLISHNESS OF ART

by Katy Kuhrt

 Last week I was reading a newspaper and came across an article headed, "Teenagers 'ignorant' about world''.  A study showed that British schoolchildren were the least likely in Europe to make an effort to understand current events in the world or to learn a foreign language. Western man's 'power' means that he can supply his children with an ipod, mobile phone, computer.  Why would they show an interest in anything else?  Some of usThey don't know what's going on outside ourtheir bedrooms let alone on the other side of the world.  The irony is that despite a massive surge in new methods of communication my generation is becoming less and less communicative.  We put oin earphones, send text messages and play computer games, none of which demands any form of human contact.  We can plug in and shut off. 

In this the UK country most young people are presented with many opportunities.   In fact there are so few limitations in terms of what you can do that you never feel you've done enough.  There is no excuse not to achieve and sometimes that pressure makes you want to hide. 

I went to a school where a huge number of activities were on offer at all timeson all days of the day, yet some students complained that school was boring.  Instead of getting involved they sat in their studies, watching DVDs or playing video games.  Many of them were complacent because they have had, and always will would have, everything they could possibly want -– there was's very little motivation.  On the other hand children at schools where I taught in the Gambia had insatiable enthusiasm and energy though many of them hadn't eaten that day.  They couldn't afford books or pencils but came anyway because above all they were desperate to learn.  In this country material obsessions become important from an early age and sometimes doors are shut and eyes closed to anything else.  On the other hand the children in the Gambia are still searching and anxious to make the most of whatever they can find. 

Perhaps schools like mine are partly to blame for students who lack open-mindedness.  When I went back to watch a hockey match last year I met my old Headmaster who asked me ifhow I was enjoying my art foundation course.  I told him yes, very much and he replied; 'make the most of it because next year you'll be getting back to some serious work.' At that stage I was applying to Oxford. To him that was all that mattered because, as far as he was concerned, it was more likely to get me a 'good job' that would earn me money and success.  This made me very angry - it showed such a complete lack of understanding from somebody I had respected. He was in a position to influence members of my generation and had done so. 

He wasn't the only one who thought like that.  A lot of my peers still can't understand why I'm not doing a 'proper' degree.  Art, as far as they're concerned, is mere foolishness - something like cutting and sticking at playschool.  They don't know that more effort, more intellect, more of everything I have goes into my Art than anything else I do.  It's not fact, figure or opinion – it's a part of me and finding that part to give is very difficult.  When I manage it I know that I am 'being'.  It is something that I can neither measure nor control; in words borrowed from the Kena-Upanishad it hears through my ear, thinks through my mind, speaks through my tongue and sees through my eye.  At these times my attention is so pure and powerful that there is nowhere else I could be but here and now.  That is my search for the spiritual in art defined.  Sometimes I find something and sometimes not – the long search continues…but its worth every minute if, from time to time, I have these moments of understanding which are like sunlight throwing chinks of light through trees on a shadowy path.  At these times     I know that there's nothing I would rather do.

But II do not want to be'm not strapped to the conveyer belt which starts with school, feeds into university and then shunts you onto the first rung of the career ladder. Sometimes this makes me very nervous but always excited.  Every pore of my body must be open to experience because my work is like a translation of all I see, smell, touch and taste.  If I stop looking they'll be nothing to create. When you're climbingIf I was climbing that e career ladder its hard to face any way other than up for fear of upsetting the balance and falling off.  So we tend to stay focused on climbing higherfurther and not much else.  This mentality is not just embedded in our psyche at school, its partly natural instinct - survival of the fittest drives us to try to be the best.  It can become an obsession.  People become addicted to short- term gain:; more money to buy more things to create more power.   You can have it all and have it now so why should you wait?  Surely commitment to anything that won't result in almost instant gratification isn't worth the effort.  So, if this really is a frame of mind that's spreading amongst the young, we face a problem because, to quote from the Millenium Trust website:

"To be effective in the world, spiritual values require commitment and the work of many individuals to seek essential resources of wisdom, enlightenment, love, faith and hope…"

Are people prepared to put in the work…is there hope for my generation and who or what will help us?

In my opinion there is one very simple answer: a good teacher – like the fool in Shakespeare's King Lear who 'teaches' Lear by repeatedly driving to the heart of the King's folly in an attempt to make him 'see better'; or like my art teacher who taught me to recognize a part of myself that I might not otherwise have discovered - as have certain artists.  Fischli and Weiss, who I discovered at Tate Modern last year, created a work called 'Untitled' where they carved perfect replicas of mass-produced goods that surround us everyday, to make us look afresh at objects that we might otherwise ignore. This theme recurred through the exhibition.  ' Untitled' tested my sense of perception.  I looked harder than usual because I couldn't believe me eyes. The artists remind us that things are not what they seem. They wake us up and bring us into the present moment. We feel refreshed, uplifted and excited. We cannot remain indifferent; we become more alert. And in consequence we become more aware of ourselves. These commonplace, everyday items of Fishli and Weiss – they prick our consciousness. 

These artists were inspired by a passage in Robert Walser's 'The Walk', where he says: "A man must bow down and sink into the deepest and smallest everyday thing…if he does not, then he walks only half attentive, with only half his spirit, and that is worth nothing."

I believe art and literature are our teachers – and so is music. Daniel Barenboim said in a recent interview, "We have to start looking at music as something that is not just an escape from life, but something through which we can learn about life." 

And listen to the greatest of the Mughal emperors, Akbar, who said: "'It appears to me as if a painter had acquired a peculiar means of recognising God; for a painter in sketching anything that has life…is thus forced to think of God the Giver of Life, and will increase in knowledge

All of these methods of teaching, whether in the form of music, art or literature, encourage us to look and listen hoping that in turn we will see and hear. To do this we must go about with antennae out, responsive, appreciative, awake, alert and alive.  And this is why Western man, if he goes about with eyes down, blinkers fastened, focused only on his material progress, is in trouble.  How can he live properly if his senses are dead? The Kena Upanishad concludes; "The living man who finds Spirit, finds Truth."

 I am very lucky to be able to visit India and take part in this conference which in itself is evidence to show that we have not given up the "struggle for man's spirit and culture in the face of technical and economic progress."  Far from it!  I am looking forward to hearing the papers that are to come and talking to some of you over the weekend.  And then I expect I'll go back to my cutting and sticking.  As Norman Mailer, the acclaimed American writer who died just two or three weeks ago, would often say:

'We must remain fools at all costs."

Katy Kuhrt

November 2007