Art + Style = Originality
What is art? How do you define it? These are difficult questions to answer and probably better left unanswered. Of course you know we are not going to let that stop us. Right? So, here is our take and hopefully it will get you thinking about YOUR OWN answers.
Andy Warhol showed us that art was inseparable from style. As Lou Reed and John Cale pointed out in the song, Style It Takes from the album, Songs For Drella (a good-by to Andy) where the average person saw simply a Brillo box, Andy saw art. Warhol had the style it took to dictate what art was (and is to this day). I heard once that Steve Jobs (Apple) had a BMW motorcycle in his living room as a piece of art.
Only now do I make the connection to an interesting acquaintance from my younger days. He was restoring an old 50’s American classic for the sole purpose of taking a road trip to California. From our brief conversation I remember so clearly how he was also looking for a unique piece of art to put in his old apartment in the Mission district. One carefully chosen piece of art, he said with real conviction, would be all that was needed to transform the mundane into something inspiring. Those seemingly inconsequential words briefly made in passing have not only stayed with me but have also inspired me down to this day.
It seems that Andy Warhol, Steve Jobs, and that (now very consequential) person from my youth, all followed the same creed; that style dictates art. In vain we keep trying to group and classify art of every sort into different styles, yet these styles continue expanding and defying such grouping. Why? Because there is always another artist who has the style it takes to dictate what is art or what art is. The avant-garde impressionists of more then a hundred years ago defined their own style just as Warhol defined pop art in the 60’s and 70’s.
Who are redesigning art today? Well, that is an easy question. Those who have the style it takes. For style + art = originality. In that case, the real question is not HOW do you define art, but rather how do YOU define art? Stay original… have the style it takes.
