A Living Museum

Imagine if art of the everyday became as prevalent as galleries and museums. Perhaps we would see a change in the way that galleries and museums are thought of. So many trends in art of the near past have sought to blur the lines between art and life. What if that line were to get blurred completely? What if everything we did, ate, wore and said became art? We might find that traditional conceptions of what an exhibition is would begin to shift out of place and into something new.  

To that extent what if art became completely uncollectible in that it was more about a state of mind and life practices? Sure it is not likely that the nature of material reality will change anytime soon, things still get produced, still exist and stand as physical facts. But what if there was a shift that took place towards the usage and interfacing with those things that placed emphasis on the lived experience to be had over the coveting of a material-fine-art-thing? Sure things are great and they can brighten life. Design starts to come to mind, though that is not exactly it. Perhaps there is more of a hybridization that could take place where lived action of the everyday began to be blended with material reality, with things like smartphones, drones and microprocessors along with cars, planes, and shoes into a living panorama.  

It is similar to looking at an egg for its symmetry and geometry and appreciating it aesthetically instead of cracking it open and eating it (an adaptation of a Dave Chapelle skit), not to mention through the process of preparation and cooking which begins to incorporate science into the flow as well. There is so much potential for art ideas and practices. It seems a shame to waste their potency on a static object that sits alone in a dark room when the lights go out at the end of the day in homes, galleries, and museums across the world.

I think of a recent MOOC that I watched where the artist being interviewed said how it is not the thing which is precious but the knowledge that it conduces. I think that is very special. There is admiring a thing for its thingness but how much more, after all, is there in our own nature which is not about thing-nature but living being. It reminds me also of an artist I used to know who went around as a gallery herself, exhibiting artwork on her body, her person. It is interesting how we can shed skin where everything becomes fluid and blurs and blends so much so that it makes no sense to use the confines of a brick and mortar building and walls to interface with it. What of a living museum? What of a museum without walls and people telling us what we should look at (I respect museums and their service but can we go further)? What happened to thinking for ourselves? What happened to looking out into the world and determining what it is we see there? The whole idea of doing an exhibition anymore just seems so pale in regards what the world is. Perhaps we need to change how we think of what art is and how we do it and also just as much how it is shared. Let us put the power back into the hands, heart, and head of the artist, and we are all artists!

There is something else that we must wake up to, a living nature, living art, the art of life, life lived, that flows in and out of buildings with ‘museum’ on the facade and a hundred other buildings. Let’s perhaps write about it instead of trying to make it happen in one specific, isolated physical location. What is the social media of buildings? Sometimes you just have to have a dream that finds the way it wants to find because you love it as you love yourself because both could be one in the same, are one in the same.