Thelma Golden: How art gives shape to cultural change

We are so used to understanding the purpose of art in Romantic terms, as the fruit of individual artistic genius, that we forget that for most of history art had a plainer and more direct purpose: it was a tool of education. The point of art was to render tough or knotty lessons easier to absorb; to nudge our recalcitrant minds towards accepting id

The goal of art isn’t to attain perfection. The goal is to share who we are. And how we see the world. Artists allow us to see what we are unable to see, but somehow already know. It may be a view of the world singularly different from our own. Or one so close, it seems miraculous, as if the artist is looking through our own eyes. In either case, t

“What art and culture is really good is about capturing the mood of now. I don't think it really is very good at changing the world. It captures now and that then inspires people to go off and try and make sense of that. But it's really good at the getting the now, that's what it's good at.”

One of the unique powers of art is to make the familiar seem other; ‘estrangement’ is vital for opening up space for imagination. Yet many of the social movements of our times are set up precisely to combat the ‘othering’ force of mainstream power, whether in relation to gender, race, sexuality, empire or disability. While the last thing a marginal