To answer the question “Is art real?”, I have found two things so far: 1) Art was present from the beginning of mankind, and 2) All human groups, from earliest known to contemporary to recently found in remote parts of the globe, have it. This to me establishes the reality of art being an integral part of human existence. Not a supposition. Not a social structure either. I don’t think I have talked about the last yet, so I will clarify.
Social structure is something agreed upon by humans living in a group (or society). They come up with it for a specific reason and establish the rules that govern it. Money is an example of it, so it retirement. There are groups of people who live and have lived without these. Then there are other things like work and government that we, humans, appear to have no choice about whether to engage in or not. They are present just like the necessity to breathe or to have food. Any group of people has some kind of government – they can choose what kind it is or decide to change it, but they can’t choose whether to have one or not.
Art, I believe, is one of those things – something that is present where man is present. A human can choose how to engage it, but he can’t choose whether to engage it or not.
Yet a famous artist of the last century, Andy Warhol, states “An artist is somebody who produces things that people don’t need to have.” Did he really believe this, or was it meant as sarcasm? Are there people today who believe it because he said it? It makes me wonder what would have been the response of the men who painted the beautiful bison in the Altamira cave. From the work involved and the detail, it doesn’t seem like they thought it unnecessary.
Art and the Invisible 