Zeus' S Dog (Study) - Mia Bergeron , 2024.

Afghanistan (Kabul), Sebastião Salgado, 1996.

Dancer dancing, Max Dupain, c. 1940

"La Condesa Sangrienta"

by Santiago Caruso

http://www.santiagocaruso.com.ar/

The way I see it, Art has two functions: escapism and confrontation. It serves as both a sanctuary and a mirror. Through escapism, Art creates landscapes where burdens dissolve, where the ordinary is transformed into the extraordinary. It reminds us of the boundless beauty that is preserved in the world and the immense potential that we harbor. It paints a picture of what could be.

But Art also confronts. It grips us by the shoulders, demanding that we open our eyes to the raw, unadorned reality of existence. It challenges the lies we tell ourselves and the illusions we construct, and forces us to reckon with the depths of our humanity. In confrontation, Art becomes the wound that refuses to heal until we take care of it. With its blood and pus, Art paints a picture of what is.

Though it might seem so, these functions are not opposites — they are intertwined; a good piece of art achieves not just a balance but a fusion, where escapism and confrontation become two edges of the same sword. This dual-edged nature is what gives Art its power. The escapist edge whispers of what the world should be; the confrontational edge reveals what the world truly is.

A sword with one dull edge is incomplete, blunt and purposeless, and, certainly, a useless weapon against any enemy, leaving its wielder defenseless and vulnerable in the face of danger. In the same way, Art that leans too heavily on either escapism or confrontation becomes unbalanced. Pure escapism is shallow and hollow; it risks becoming an empty distraction. Pure confrontation, on the other hand, risks alienating and overwhelming the audience without offering hope.

Enough with bedrotting and also enough with living your life through the veil of Routines and Habits. What u need is to live ur life like it’s a bizarre 1969 avante grade art film documenting the life of an 18th century poet and musician through abstract visual-poetic representations

Edit after George Ellery Hale (Rijksmuseum) (Ed. Lic.: CC BY-NC 3.0)

Pyotr Ouspensky, A New Model of the Universe

Nikolay Punin, from a diary entry featured in The Diaries of Nikolay Punin: 1904 - 1953

"Thou Shalt Not", 1940 photograph by Whitey Schafer, made in protest of the then-current motion picture censorship Hays Code. The photograph deliberately breaks many of the "rules" of the code, listed in the upper right corner.

mesmerized