Art: Looking Beyond the Obvious

Perusing the Art Institute Website this week, I’m reminded of something important for art: Looking Beyond the Obvious is vital. This all started when I came across a photo on the website – What to See in an Hour. They included the above photo as a ‘must see’ item and I was intrigued. Why this photo?

I started looking at it, then I started researching it. The photograph by Cindy Sherman has an interesting sense of immediacy to it. What happened to this person – why does this photo exist? What makes it worthy of inclusion at the Art Institute? AIC offered no explanation beyond – In Untitled #92, she depicted herself in a moment of cinematic distress, crouched on the floor with wet hair. Her costume—white blouse and plaid skirt—evokes a school uniform, and her well-manicured hands offer evidence of some unknown struggle. An imposing darkness surrounds her but a bright light, suggestive of a flashlight or the headlights of a car, illuminates her blank expression.

Looking Beyond the Obvious

Um, okay? I still don’t understand what that means. I still don’t have the answers to my questions. Is the lady okay? Did she do something bad, is something bad happening to her? There’s no one to tell me. That’s when I realized the point – that’s the point of the photo. Sherman wanted you to ask those questions, she wanted us to feel uncertain and confused. Questions that have no easy answers, uncertainty, confusion – those are common themes of her experience as a woman. That’s the point of the art. It’s supposed to make you feel something.

But what does the picture *mean*?? I’ll get to that in a second. Right now I want to talk about art in general – in order for it to make you feel something, you need to know it’s context. What was the artist trying to say? Were they right, wrong, or crazy? There are no easy answers to the questions, and that’s kind of the point. Human beings have an innate desire to ‘look beyond the obvious‘ to identify deeper patterns or ideas.

Data without context may be worthless, but context without data is stupidity. Starting with context before data is also stupid: you’re framing facts to support the theory, instead of theory to support the facts. But the point of giving me data with no context is where the art happens – that’s where we’re looking beyond the obvious.

But There’s More to It

Here’s what makes art interesting – you can make art that no one cares about, or you can have cares that no one ‘arts’ about. What makes art meaningful are the emotions communicated between the artist and the audience. Creating and experiencing art is a reciprocal, contextual, and ever-changing relationship. They teach you how to hone those ideas and processes in school, or if you’re a self-taught artist like me, you’ll learn it on your own. That’s what they call ‘Outsider art.’  

But at the end of the day, we’re all chasing that relationship. We (artists) are making art that communicates emotions, ideas, and thoughts through a cultural language (art) to people we hope will receive that message (audience).

In the case of Cindy Sherman’s Untitled #92, she was making a point about what we, the audience, will experience when we see this woman. No story, no context – we starting filling in the blanks of what we see with our own story.

Sherman was challenging us to experience and reckon with our assumptions about the woman – she was pointing out, using 1981 technology and cultural language: ‘hey, do you ever stop and *think* about what you think, and what that does to other people?’ Sherman’s the ‘artist’, her photos are the ‘paintbrush’ and your emotions are the ‘canvas.’

So yeah, wow.

What This Teaches Me About Art

Looking beyond the obvious with art reminds us to listen to that little voice in our head saying ‘there’s more to it’ when we look at the world around us. Current events got you down? There’s more to the story – go find out what it is. Neighbor acting like a jerk (yes, Gary, I know you read my blog) about his garbage cans? There’s more to the story – go find out what it is (I heard the news, Gary – I’m so sorry for your loss).

But take a step back from there – what does that mean as an artist? It means I need to be intentional about a couple of different things that I admit, I didn’t really consider before.

How am I getting the audience to trust me enough so that they’ll take the data (the story) and provide their own context about what they’re experiencing to achieve the appropriate reciprocal, contextual relationship we’re both looking for?What am I communicating through my art? What do I want them to take from the story? Is it just about ‘playing with ideas’ or is there something deeper I should be working toward?

I don’t have a complete answer to those questions yet, but I’m going to continue rumbling on this. In the meantime, I’m inviting you to talk to me about this on BlueSky and Mastodon and let’s see if we can find some answers together.

The point of looking beyond the obvious with art is an expression of faith, hope, and joy to the world. ‘My life is more than what I’m experiencing, and so is yours.’ ‘Here’s what I’m experiencing and what I think it means, please tell me what you think.’ Even if we never find the answers, the fact that we can speak the questions makes us feel seen, heard, and loved. Your art can’t do that unless you’re used to looking beyond the obvious.

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