Translator: Zoe Titmus Reviewer: Elisabeth Buffard
Art is a polysemic and social phenomenon.
That is to say, it’s a phenomenon
that we define in relation to a society with a distinct culture.
Art would not exist without the context of space and time.
This is not a phenomenon you can point to and name just like that;
you always have to imagine it or conceive it within a context.
Rather, it is a phenomenon that depends on its space-time
and the cultural specifics of the social group that creates it.
Then you can wonder, and I think it is an interesting,
about the concept of necessity:
is art something we really need?
We know that it’s a phenomenon
that only exists in the context of a social group and a specific culture
but we could also ask ourselves:
is art something we need?
And to answer this question,
we must try to imagine that human beings have needs
as set out by the pyramid theory
- which you probably know, at least in part -
Maslow’s pyramid, which refers to human needs.
We can imagine that the pyramid is largest at its base
which represents the essential things that human beings need to survive
and that the higher up you go, the more specialised these needs become,
and the more - I wouldn’t say secondary, but sophisticated, they become.
And so, this could present a potentially exaggerated view
that would deem art a luxury.
But Maslow’s pyramid puts it well
because it speaks of accomplishment rather than luxury.
And art is probably an accomplishment,
one of the qualities that differentiates humans from animals,
because it’s an accomplishment
that comes from both a psychological and material recognition.
And so, I believe that by placing art in this dimension of accomplishment,
we pay hommage to it and we understand that it equates to human accomplishment.
And to attempt to make this a little simpler and easier,
we could say that a drawing, in itself,
cannot change how humans see humanity,
but that a monument, like a pyramid, could.
It could change your view of architecture or the concept of divinity.
And this pyramid could not have been drawn
without architectural thinking, without artistic thinking.
And that’s how we come full circle;
by stating that art is integrated into different dimensions
of human and scientific practices,
and that there’s this relationship of interaction
between art as a specialised field and other fields.
The two other points
that I wanted to address quickly -
my discussion will not be very long
because, rather than discussing my career or personal things,
I wanted to concentrate on certain concepts
that can sometimes confuse people who struggle to judge art.
Firstly, we spoke about the symbolic definition of art
because we discussed what it represents,
its interaction with other sectors,
and its own definition, which is polysemous.
Now, I wish to turn to the value of art.
This value can be divided into two essential branches.
The first is the symbolic value that we have just evoked:
what does art mean symbolically?
A few days ago, I was with a young friend who’s a doctor,
who asked me:
“Zakaria, I would like to understand why a work of art has value.
What makes a work of art valuable?”
And I was happy to give him my example.
The didactics that I often use to explain why a work of art can be valuable
is to ask them to imagine that they are holding a child’s drawing
and that this drawing has no value beyond being a child’s drawing.
I ask them to imagine that this is the child’s first drawing
and that someone in the family, a grandmother or grandfather,
has carefully held onto it and now brings it back out;
this little bit of paper suddenly becomes the child’s first experience.
Now, we can elaborate and say:
let’s imagine that this isn’t the child’s first drawing,
but that it’s their father’s first drawing and that they lost their father,
and that someone, again, has carefully held onto the drawing,
and brings it out.
Now, does the child place the same material value
on this drawing as they did when it was a normal child’s drawing?
The child would not exchange this drawing for a lot of money
because it becomes something symbolic for them.
And it’s exactly this symbolic dimension of belief
that makes art become something valuable
since, in fact, when we believe and make others believe
that something aesthetic also has a monetary or material exchange value,
it’s through belief.
And without belief, bank notes would also be bits of paper
that we could tear up or burn.
Once again, this material value exists,
first and foremost, only symbolically.
We cannot talk about art in the form of material value
without first discussing symbolic value.
Another interesting point to mention
is bringing art and the general public closer together.
I believe that there’s a kind of barrier between the public,
artistic practices, museums and galleries,
which makes people believe or adds to a notion of mystification
and the idea that art is a complicated, complex universe,
a universe which only opens for the initiated who are integrated.
And I believe that when we succeed in getting some intellectual distance
in relation to everything, almost philosophical,
art will also become a field about which we can debate,
to which we can have access,
which can even expand in terms of the public.
Anyway, I would like to believe that these ideas of an educational nature
that I have quickly developed here -
because this video will not be very long -
have allowed viewers, young or old,
to reimagine the concept of value or the concept of how art is defined.