Good Art vs. Bad Art? Who cares?

Since IamHarrell will be in Glen Brook this week and since he has asked me to help facilitate our Monday and Wednesday discussions, it's only fair that I contribute to our "Oxymoron" blog.

Sadly, I missed your first discussion. I find your thoughts on "how media manipulates us (sells us, models values, creates fame as a commodity)" to be very interesting. I think you all really "hit the nail on the head" here. Instead of asking whether a piece of art is good or bad, I'd like to propose an alternative question. What sort of *social forms* does this artwork perform on me/you/us?

In other words, how is the artwork manipulating me? How does the artwork address my identity? Who cares if I think the pieces of art on the left, in camparison to the pieces on the right, are "good or bad"? I think the bigger issue here is how these pieces make statements about religion, Catholicism, morality, and so on and so forth. On a more personal level, how do these pieces make statments about *my* religion, *my* Catholicism, and/or *my* morality? How does it change? Or does it remain the same?

Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, two mid-20th century philosophical thinkers and highly regarded art critcs, wrote The Dialectics of Enlightenment where they argued that the culture industry, produces and circulates cultural commodities through the mass media. (Think: Britney Spears, Andrea Bocelli, or Chris Botti) For them, popular culture was identified as a reason why people become passive and highly manipulated.

So, where does this leave us? Are we all just highly manipulated consumers in the culture industry's marketplace? Where is our sense of free choice? Where is our *freedom*?