Socially Engaged Art Socially Engaged Art Visual & Performing Arts

I bet that most people think that virtually all art is "socially engaged" because it is meant to be noticed and appreciated, criticized and consumed, by an audience or spectator of some kind, even if it is only the artist's mom :)
People who think this way may be confused by the idea that socially engaged art is a different kind of thing from art that has purely aesthetic aims in mind.
Now, before we get too far, let's be clear that even as we are naming two categories or kinds of art (socially engaged and purely aesthetic) we are not saying that these are mutually exclusive or incompatible categories. It may be that the most aesthetically powerful art work of all time also exerts some kind of socially transformative force. It may be that the most socially transformative work of art also has a stunning aesthetic effect. Who knows?
In the last assignment we saw that Suzi Gablik, in the 1990s, called for a kind of art that aspired to accomplish something different from aesthetic art. Notice I said "something different from..." not "something more than..." I did that to avoid the use of the "less/more" duality and the "better/worse" duality that it often implies. You may think socially engaged art is better or worse, or more or less, than aesthetic art, and that is fine -- think away! But I do not want to pre-program you to think one way or the other about that! You are the next generation and you need to remake the artworld in your vision, not mine...
Now, turn your attention to the two readings attached here. The first one is a quick easy read that introduces the idea of socially engaged art, and provides some interesting examples. The second one is one of mine, it is an article on what I term as "Sociography" which is a play on the notion of "choreography." The kind of work I term as Sociography challenges the privileged status of proscenium-based choreography that positions the audience on one side of the work, in the dark, passive and un-involved. In creating Sociographic works I was not trying to do away with or replace proscenium-based work, but only trying to do something different from that; something more socially engaged.
I suggest that you consider Sociographic works as a form of socially engaged art, but I am happy if you decide otherwise and say so -- say anything you think about any of this!
So, here is a prompt that you can address directly, or that you can use as a suggestion and then go your own way: share some ideas on the value (importance) or lack thereof of socially engaged art, and of possible outcomes that it may be able to achieve that are different from those (maybe "better than" but maybe not) those that are usually achieved by art that is not specifically socially engaged. You may also want to tie in the last assignment by sharing some ideas that Gablik might have if she were in this conversation. In other words, "What would Suzi say?" could be a matter to which you give some thought here.