The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City publishes self-produced videos on YouTube. They cover a wide range of topics, including information about events organised by the museum and discussions about art trends. My favourite are the ‘Tutorials’ where the artists themselves or their curators give viewers hands-on demonstrations with brushes and paints, or materials such as clay or textiles, with detailed explanations.
In these programmes, the artists become the producing hosts. The camera pans slowly from the whole to the parts and back again as they explain, calmly showing their hands, their tools, their surroundings and their work. The videos are unpretentious from start to finish, with no carefully calculated dramatisation or flashy effects. In fact, watching the work of their hands through the camera may not be as good as seeing it in person, but it's still fascinating, varied and specific. Each video is less than 30 minutes long, and the references and works mentioned by the artists are so generously included that the viewer never feels left out.
It's fascinating to me how the artists' language flows through their work. Their language makes the abstract concrete, distinguishes between seemingly identical things, and translates personal preferences into styles. They speak, or rather verbally interpret colour, line, shape, weight, shadow, whole and detail, presence and absence, intention and coincidence. The language in the videos is mostly English, but they don't use long, heavy or complicated sentences; they are comfortable using light, everyday words to convey their intentions without losing the context.
Listening to their stories makes me think about language, freedom and art. I believe that expressing art in this way elevates language. Art expressed in fresh language is as refreshing as a lemon. It becomes the whistle of a pressure cooker, piercing the heavy air of everyday life. My perception, like bread, stuck in a predetermined mould, baked and drying out, suddenly becomes loose and fluffy. I feel now a bud growing inside me, as if I could do something after years of lethargy.
Ah, freedom, that's it. The value of art is freedom, and artists create their works in order not to lose the language of freedom, and through their works, their expressions and explanations, non-artists enliven their language, break its containment, breathe out and expand their world. The fog in my head clears a little and my rocky shoulder suddenly becomes lighter. I've always been a minion, screaming for recognition, and then suddenly I'm noticed and become a silent presence.
p.s.) It is no coincidence that many of history's most famous dictators, as soon as they came to power, began to destroy art and suppress artists. Whether or not they realised the real reason for their cowardly actions is anyone's guess, but the system they were trying to maintain and the arts lay in direct conflict.
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