The Aesthetic Relationship

“Art is created on the basis of a continual everyday, cultural, ideological inter-relationship between a class and its artists. Between the aristocracy or the bourgeoisie and their artists there was no split in daily life. The artists lived, and still live, in a bourgeois milieu, breathing the air of bourgeois salons, they received and are receiving hypodermic inspirations from their class. This nourishes the subconscious processes of their creativity.”

- Class and Art by Leon Trostky, 1924

If we look beyond Trotsky’s discourse on class and consider the bigger point: art as a reflection of the dominant desires, tendencies and norms of a society or its influencers, an observation can be made.

In society where paintings adorn the walls but people do not dare to dye their hair green, creative expression is viewed as object or ornament, not a worthwhile personal or emotional truth. And in societies where art doesn’t even adorn walls, but we purchase it for $20 on a magnet - without asking the artist's name - what can be said of our relationship to creativity then?

In both cases, self-expression is treated as a product to be consumed, not as something to be understood, explored, or engaged with. Creative acts are absorbed without context or meaning, reduced to aesthetic utility or transactional entertainment. It’s no wonder that when it comes to our own vulnerability and self-expression, we feel exposed, uncertain, embarrassed, disinterested.

In a society that commodifies creativity, honest self-expression feels like an out of body experience. In such environments, embarrassment is not a personal failing: it’s a learned response to a world that has made self-expression feel unsafe.

This raises a question: in a society that claims to value authenticity, diversity, and inclusion, but only skims real vulnerability and connection at a surface-level, are we witnessing performative tolerance?

If creative expression is only welcome when it's palatable, profitable, or fits within certain aesthetic norms, what kind of space (if any) is there for the messy, unpolished, creative, deeply human parts of ourselves?

Edward in Uptown, 2018.