Social and transformative art

"Art was initially a matter of minorities for minorities, then minorities for majorities and we are beginning a new era in which art is an enterprise of majorities for majorities" // José Antonio Abreu

Popularly, the concept of art has been directly linked to a rich and varied universe perceived as far from everyday life. Like a world apart where access is limited and restricted to a select few. For some years now, art has been playing a new role, more focused on the artistic process than on the idea of a finished work. Reality tells us that art has, first of all, a transformative capacity for the person and the community.

In order to define what art is, we will approach Western art theory, which establishes four criteria to evaluate a production as artistic (Wajnerman, 2007):

a) Singularity, that is, the existence of a single copy of the work in question.

b) Originality, understood as the novelty that creation brings.

c) Genius, understood as the exclusive capacity for expression of a “select” group of people called “artists”.

d) The aesthetic function as predominant over other functions, such as political or religious ones.

According to this definition, the artist is explained as a member of a limited group of people, with an unusual profile with a purpose that makes him special. Even so, the development of the variety of artistic languages and their evolution does not allow us to remain with only one definition of art or artist. The everyday surpasses it.