Is Art for Everyone?
Photo Credit: Madison Square Park Conservatory
I was walking through Madison Square Park with a friend recently, and we were discussing the current art installation. I really like it, but my friend is not a fan. “I don’t get it,” he said - it’s just more high-minded conceptual art. I replied, “maybe it’s just supposed to be pretty in the snow?” And the exchange got me thinking - how many people might feel disconnected from art for exactly this reason? The official write-up for the installation describes the artist, Larry Bell, as someone who “uses atmosphere as material, which alongside the reflective and transmissive properties of glass, leads to both subtle and complex perceptual conditions.” For folks who frequent galleries and museums, that kind of language might feel familiar, but what is it really saying? Is it just saying, “these glass structures are interesting and worth admiring?”
It seems like we’ve turned art into something to decode, and even the way we write about it leaves more questions than answers. This approach to art has replaced the permission to just appreciate it in whatever way feels natural to you. Maybe you like it, maybe you don’t like it, maybe it makes you feel joy or perhaps disdain. All of that is fine. Art can be whatever you want it to be. There is not always a specific message being conveyed by the artist, which can also be somewhat unsettling. Then what is it for? Art is just meant to be experienced.
My brother manages a team of heavy machinery mechanics in rural northern California. I don’t know if he’s ever been to an art museum, or feels comfortable doing so. I don’t think it’s ever occurred to him as something he might want to do. Not because he lacks curiosity or depth, but because somewhere along the line he absorbed a message that art wasn’t really for him. Why? He’s not alone. Huge swaths of the population have quietly opted out of one of the most powerful human experiences available to them - not out of indifference, but out of a feeling of not belonging. How do we let them know that art is for everyone?
There’s a real opportunity to change this. To bring art out of its elite bubble and into places where people already are. To let it be colorful and fun and worth stopping for, without esoteric language and a demand that anyone justify their response to it. Because when art is genuinely accessible - when people feel welcome rather than tested - something remarkable can happen. Strangers can find themselves standing in front of the same thing, feeling something, and suddenly having a reason to talk. To connect. To discover what they have in common. Art has always had the power to create belonging. We just have to let it.
