Josh Lowenstein - Aesthetic Evangelists Paper

Josh Lowenstein

Serrano

Arts and Community Engagement

April 5, 2016

Aesthetic Evangelists Paper

Community engagement plays a very important role in the creation of art. In fact, in recent years, many works of art have been created by members of communities rather than a city council or public agency. Grant H. Kester, a professor of art history discusses the transformative practices of community-engaged art in "Aesthetic Evangelists: Conversion and Empowerment in Contemporary Community Art."

Kester introduces the idea of "community" and what this word means in creating art. He says that community is not necessarily solely members of the community creating art. Furthermore, a community arts project more often involves collaboration between members of a community and one "artist" working with that community. The goal of the two working together is usually for the artist to represent the community they are working with. Kester explains this relationship by referring to Pierre Bourdieu who describes the relationship, stating that the artist represents the community almost like in the voting purpose of the United States congress. In congress, there are members of the House and Senate who represent their state's constituents and are supposed to vote based on the values that their state believes in.

However, Kester argues that this lead artist is often not chosen based on how popular they are, but they simply decide to do an art piece displaying the community. This phenomenon means that the artist really is not working with community, but instead making the community their art piece.  

The key for community arts to work effectively is the ability to achieve a balance between the community represented and the aspirations of the artist. In addition, the artist should not be helping out a community if they are only trying to gain something from this work. Instead, the artist should be working with the community to truly help represent the community members beliefs and ideals for the project.

Kester continues to talk about a certain case of artist Dawn Dedeaux, who worked in a prison with inmates to help them develop creative outlets. She had a difficult time with receiving respect, but she eventually gained the trust of one of the inmates and it began to rub off on the others. Her final product of this work, titled "Soul Shadows" included video footage of her working on art projects with the inmates to show how these individuals really have changed and improved. Unfortunately, in reality, her piece does less to display how these people in the prison have changed through the usage of art and creative pathways, and it tries harder to display how great Dedeaux is because of her ability to break social barriers and exemplify an artist who can work with a community.

Kester is definitely one of the most cynical critics of community arts, but he definitely provides legitimate evidence to explain his cynicism. Community artists seem to make a habit of using a community engaged project for their own benefit when the whole point of community arts is to help the community. It is very important to take Kester's research into consideration so that artists make sure they are orienting their motives towards helping the communities with whom they are working.

Works Cited:

Bourdieu, Pierre. "Thesis Eleven: Delegation and Political Fetishism." (Pg 203). February 1985.

Dedeaux, Dawn. "Soul Shadows: Urban Warrior Myths" Fleet Bank - "Montage '93," Rochester, New York, May 1993.

Kessler, Grant. "Aesthetic Evangelists: Conversion and Empowerment in Contemporary Community Art." University of California San Diego, California 2004.