Detroit Institute of Art

Creating Your Own Personal Canon

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We often hear about The Canon, a presumed-monolithic entity of classics from Western literature and art that is in opposition to literatures from outside the west, different art forms, and different ways of conceiving classical works. There is also much good debate about the canon as we know it, what should be included in it and what should be discarded so that we can make way for works that are more relevant and reflective of our modern society and perceptions. However, we can also ask ourselves about our own tastes and preferences, and create our own personal canon. What are the books, paintings, pieces of music, works of art that inspire us personally?

As I wrote in an earlier post, many years ago I saw a photo exhibit by Patti Smith at the Detroit Institute of Arts. What was most striking was not the photographs themselves, but the canon she had put together through photography. She has a sensitive, aesthetic eye and is moved by great art of any kind; she also knows which body of work inspires her. Inspiration is a word that is thrown around loosely, in clever memes on Instagram, on wooden cubes for home decor. On a deeper level, it is something that we cannot live without. Different artists speak to us in different ways–some appeal to our “shadow” or dark side, some uplift us, others challenge us, motivate us, see things in a different way than we do, etc. etc.

When we create our own personal canon, it does not necessarily mean we have to make a list or a Pinterest board to define it in a formal way. Naturally, we will gravitate to certain types of works or artists and over time, we get a sense of what we like. Emulation is part of the process: maybe we paint like X, write like Y, or dress like Z. And then we start developing our own voice, using elements of X, Y, or Z, and eventually our voice becomes our own. For those who aren’t artists, a personal canon will simply be a body of work and artists whom one always want to see more of. A person working in finance who has no aptitude for music may always want to follow the latest from Björk, or a scientist may have regular tickets to the symphony. What matters, in any case, is that we know who or what inspires us and ignites our soul. I argue in favor of following the artists we love best, the trajectory of their creativity, knowing the body of their work. Don’t we love talking with people who have a passion for a particular artist in depth?

We can choose whatever elements we want for our own personal canon. Who’s to say that someone can’t mix Rihanna with Balkan folk dancing with Latin American magical realist authors? Think of your canon as a special box in which you put your favorite, most precious objects. Each of these objects is like a different stone: one might be precious, one might be common but look nice, another one might be unusual. There is no right or wrong here; all that matters is that you choose what you love, knowing that it reflects a part of you that is your deepest soul.

Public Art

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This time of year is full of a creative medium that is so appealing to so many people of all different backgrounds and ages: holiday/Christmas lights and decorations. On TV, local news highlights different streets and events where one can go to see magnificent and/or tacky decorations that people generously put up on their houses and lawns. There are also websites and good old word of mouth to inform people where they can go for a dose of holiday cheer. It strikes me that this is, fundamentally, a kind of public art.

What is public art at its best? A tremendous force to unite people under the principle of aesthetics. The Fourth of July is another example, with extraordinary flowers of fire that illuminate the night sky: fireworkds form a canopy under which millions of people sit with their friends and families and loved ones, perhaps with something to eat or drink, basking in the display above them. Like the tradition of Christmas decorations, many people enjoy decking out their yards for Halloween. All of these involve people stopping to look, examine, observe, and delight in. What has the artist come up with? How have they used a large outdoor space?

Murals are a wonderful example of public art, and they often are a prevalent mode in minority communities. Whether it is carefully-designed graffiti on walls or a mural dedicated to a hero, we cannot overlook the significance of how accessible both the materials and the artwork are. Think of Diego Rivera, who is revered as one of Mexico’s greatest artists. Anyone who has seen his mural at the Detroit Institute of Art will understand why without question, though of course it is ironic that a left-wing artist’s mural is on display in a museum funded by the spoils of capitalism. But no art school training or fancy materials are needed for murals: cans of (spray) paint, brushes, and imagination are all that is needed. British artist Banksy has elevated this to a fine art form, and his works sell for millions, though he is a creator of public art. Put the mural on the ground and it becomes sidewalk art. While living in New York, I loved seeing the work of James de la Vega, with its inspirational messages that kept a young music student like me going.

One cannot speak of public art without referring the late, great Bulgarian-French artist Christo (and his wife Jeanne-Claude) who, like it or not, made enormous installations in public spaces that were accessible for everyone to see. I had the privilege of seeing him give a talk a few years ago, and he seemed like one of the true late 1960s French left-wing radicals, explaining how he used the money from his lucrative works to galleries and private collectors to find his public art. There are others, of course, who do not work with a Christo-sized budget but create stunning works for the community, such as my friend, multimedia artist Jenneva Kaiser who had an outdoor installation in Phoenix. Outdoor sculpture gardens, such as the magnificent Storm King outside New York City which features art by the great heavyweights such as Calder and Maya Lin (who deserves her own blog post, as she is a seminal figure in public art) and the Meijer Sculpture Gardens outside Grand Rapids, MI make use of massive space and scale as well as nature.

Public art is our natural impulse. When we are tiny children, we take pleasure in doodling on sidewalks with chalk if that is possible, making sandcastles in a sandbox or at the beach (another creative medium which has been elevated to an art form we can see in competitions). It’s also a prehistoric impulse: think of the cave paintings in Lascaux and elsewhere. We need it more than ever, especially in a time like this when a pandemic has isolated us and kept us inside. Safe, socially distanced, mask-required outdoor art a great way of connecting us when our most fundamental human aspect of connection has been denied to us.