Camus and the Transformative Nature of Art: The Invigorating and Community-Building Experience of Public Art

Abstract

Art, it has been said, is a reflection of its time. The discipline of art history tells us that the study of art should include an examination of its historical environment. This assertion, coupled with the claim that public art museums and the rituals experienced within them provide rich fodder for understanding society and its many relations and interactions, shows us that art is, indeed, inseparable from the public sphere. If we turn this idea around, we can see not only that art is created in response to society, but also that society is shaped by the values and knowledge born of creative endeavors. Art revives us as individuals and invigorates the spirit through its ability to expand imaginative boundaries and reveal universal human ties. A healthy society—and democracy itself—ultimately relies on the participatory inspiration and consequent political will of individuals. This individual will, to be truly free from the dominating values of popular opinion, can be accessed and developed through rebellious and visionary artistic experience. Our postmodern world is not only globalized, but technologically sophisticated as well. While this state makes communication, trade, and travel more efficient, it also burdens people with almost constant stimulation, the need to rush, and the encouragement to work harder. This is particularly the case in the United States, where democracy has, from its beginnings, been inti- mately tied to a spirited and pragmatic work ethic and a capitalist ethos, rather than to poetry and community life, despite the influence of the Puritans (Young, 1996).

Art realizes… the reconciliation of the unique with the universal of which Hegel dreamed.

Albert Camus, The Rebel

The end, the aim, is to make thought—the power of man, the participation in and the consciousness of that power—intervene in life in its humblest detail… more remote than the means, the aim is to change life, lucidly to recreate everyday life.

Henri Lefebvre, Critique of Everyday Life