Arts & International Affairs: Volume 2, Number 2 | Page 168

and the globally found notions of the aesthetic, from ancient days to the
present, certainly point toward a universality. If universality means common
experiences, then art like language is universal. If universality means a
human covenant informed with a collectively shared ethos, then art does
not deliver automatically. Importantly, art should not deliver on universalist
aspirations that may be tainted with existing dogmas.
The year ���� demands a deeper probe into ideas that art can carry us
toward universally shared values. This essay discusses the historical
language that facilitates or prohibits art to speak in universal ways, the
localized confrontations that have revised the concept over time, and the
need for further participatory dialogues to provide an ethic for universal
values in the twenty-first century. The political shocks in recent years that
have led to the rise of local populism the world over have rubbished and
challenged globalisms and universalities. Cosmopolitanism, close cousin to
universality, is under attack. Both reactionary and progressive forces in the
world question cosmopolitan notions that come from the mouths and minds
of elites and intellectuals and exclude groups, be they the white working
classes of Philadelphia or the inner city black youth in that same city a few
miles away. Nevertheless, the longing for art to unite us lurks from museum
curations to graffiti-laden walls, along with the desire for artistic dialogues
to reflect our human conditions, or what Charles Taylor (����) would call the
“politics of recognition.”
The Language of Art
The fact that all human beings eat, speak, and breathe does not necessarily
attest to a global humanity or a universal language. Speaking a language is
different from the notion of a universal language. We speak many languages;
they unite us as communicative beings but divide us into tribes and
groups. Speaking a language or finding art everywhere cannot be sufficient
conditions for a universal language.
There is something else about art. The power of art is literally that it speaks a
different language and, even when controversial, it can evoke some humanity
in us. Art can be variously evocative, provocative, sentimental, humanizing,
empathic, divisive, controversial, spectacular, entertaining, destructive, or
constructive. Ideologically, art can be conservative, progressive, or radical.
�
Others deny the artist or the author any agency or volition to stand outside the structures
of surveillance and power (Foucault ����; Norris ����).
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