Art can be simultaneously uncomfortable and rewarding. On my better days, days when I have a surplus of emotional energy, I enjoy engaging art I dislike. Like the experience of a “bad” dream, it gives me access to ideas and parts of self that I wouldn’t consciously choose to look at. Art, like dreams, holds a capacity to expand my internal landscape and leads me down trails of thought I never would have chosen.
If “ideas are ecosystems” as Bayo Akomolafe says, then not only am I engaging a singular idea, but a whole network of them. To look at a piece of art is to look at a network of experiences, an interconnected way of seeing the world. It makes sense that sometimes the first the instinct in the presence of an unknown ecosystem is to reject it. Or maybe it is not an unknown ecosystem—maybe it taps into a network of thoughts that have been harmful in the past, or have lead to threats of harm, real or perceived. Or maybe, it is a trail of thoughts that are dull af, and I lack any natural interest in sharing perspective with the artist.
At any moment, I can choose to exit the work. Sometimes I do. I close my mind and return to experiences that feel like home—the reassuring comfort of all the knowns. I don’t always have the stamina to engage new ideas. I want the familiar, the comfortable, the known, so I exit the conversation, just like when I wake up from a bad dream, forget it, and move on in my day.
But I know this comes with risk. When I only cultivate one kind of thought, I am tending my inner landscape with a monoculture. Slowly I reinforce my own ideas and, without expansion, any outside ecosystem begins to register as a threat. While monocultures are efficient and tidy, they are very precarious. It just takes one tiny bug or weather event to cause a disaster. So I know it is important to practice engaging art I do not immediately enjoy.
There are a few ways to do this. One way simply to “stay with the trouble” of a work, and invite the presence of uncomfortable experiences. Instead of immediately moving on from the piece, you can stay with it and ask why it’s there. If it is hard to locate the source of discomfort, just giving a description of work can be helpful. Observational description to yourself or to another person, like describing a dream, can help to locate the discomfort.
Another way to let new ideas in, is to attend a gallery or an art exhibit with a friend and openly share your thoughts about the works. Unless you’re committed to liking everything that they like, or appearing to do so, you’ll usually find that friends are drawn to work that you would not be drawn to. If you’re able to have conversations about that, if they are able to share their perspective and ideas, and you are able to listen, it can be a wonderful way to access works that you would have not otherwise lingered with.
Finally, one of my favorite ways to engage new work, is to spend time in exhibits with children. Their unfiltered responses help my push past my own well-worn paths of vision and seeing work with fresh eyes and ask new questions.
Whether alone, with friends or with children, art offers many pathways into expanding personal capacities. While I surround myself in my domestic space with art I love, when I feel able, I will try sometimes to go out of my way, even just a little bit, to encounter new ecosystems of thought. It is a practice I’d recommend to anyone.
Alexandra Ross Works 