Via Artsjournal.com is a piece on The Critic addressing the trend in thinking art has curative abilities. I have long written about the problem with measuring the value of art in prescriptive terms.
While the piece focuses on The Tate in the UK, the points are applicable world wide.
Writes Ella Nixon in “It’s not the Tate’s job to heal you”:
These cultural institutions are transforming curatorial practice in order to combat the spread of anxiety and depression — particularly amongst the young. Taxpayer value is proven through demonstrable worth. Curators are incentivised to diagnose and treat societal ailments through exhibition practices as a means of demonstrating their social utility and thereby justifying their public funding, at the expense of art’s true potential to cultivate society.
But as Goodhart’s Law states, when the measure becomes the goal, the measure ceases to have any value.
Nixon cites examples of when the art created has had to take a backseat to the goals of addressing inequity, social issues, and environmental concerns.
One manifestation of the medicalisation of artistic value is the latest Turner Prize winner. Commentators — including chair of the jury and director of Tate Britain, Alex Farquharson — focused excessively on the fact that Nnena Kalu was the first learning-disabled artist to win the prize, rather than on discussing the artistic qualities of her work.
Not only are curators expected to address complex manifestations of medical disabilities, but also to inextricably link care and climate change. One wall text at Tate Britain declares, “We continue to struggle with the planet-wide impact of the climate emergency.”
Certainly artists intentionally address issues which are meaningful to them in their creations. But if the didactic messaging is the primary recognized value and the artistic expression is expected to take a secondary or tertiary role, wouldn’t it be better to just commission a PSA?
In the same way, viewing and using art in a prescriptive manner intended to solve some ill makes the artistic value and creativity invested in it subservient at best and in danger of being regarded alongside a tablespoon full of cod liver oil at worst.
