Role of Artist in Society

What is the Role of an Artist in Society?

The above question raises three questions in my mind, Question 1: who is artist? Question 2: Does everything which an artist creates comes in art? And am I the right person to answer this question?

For me artist is the person who enlightens people with thoughts, who creates or helps to create good art, which reflects realism and projects awareness in society. An artist should be a person people look at.

Taking an example: why is a movie like Frost\Nixon by Ron Howard considered art? It reflects reality back to us; the story portrays legendary battle between Richard Nixon, and David Frost, confronting the questions of his time in office and the Watergate scandal that ended his presidency. The movie delves into the controversy and helps educate the Americans as to who involved in the Watergate conspiracy.

Artist with their creative superiority at times involves into the sorrows of society and make people come face to face with the cruelty of their surroundings. This is done in a creative and often beautiful fashion.

An artist has the liberty to be subtle and in-your-face at the same time. Take the Dadaist artists for example. They brought out the post-war frustration through their senseless yet overloaded with content art. They kick off a revolution and did not get questioned for it because they had the caring companion of labeling their hatred as ‘art’. An artist is the one who can create meaning even with destruction and the Dadaist artists did just that.

Art highlights the awful elements of a society in unsympathetic visual and audio representation and still manages to mix a reaction. Artists play an important role in the social construction of a community. Artists are craftsmen who play with art and improve the discontent in communities due to social evils like corruption, crime etcetera.

Artists think on a completely different level and many a times they are misunderstood and disliked, but that has not stopped art from flourishing. Art is an escape and artists in every society help the common people. Artists are our saviors in unruly attire.

“Artist is not, complex philosophical thoughts, but the one who crafts art in people’s way of understanding”