Some art is meant to question, to disturb, even to provoke.
Some art is meant to soothe, to reflect, to heal.
There are many reasons for art, and many benefits from it. You can't reduce it down to one.
I'm not an artist by trade, but I do a variety of artistic things for different purposes. I've made crystal window dangles because they are pretty. One of those has a weathered wood hanger, because I like wabi-sabi aesthetics and it contrasts nicely with the precise and brightly colored prisms. I've made memorial scrapbook pages in honor of my mother. That's art as healing, but also, as timebinding.
Both of these are important public art, they are equally valid responses to the same problem, but they take opposite trajectories in attempting to solve it. Art does that a lot.
Well ...
Some art is meant to question, to disturb, even to provoke.
Some art is meant to soothe, to reflect, to heal.
There are many reasons for art, and many benefits from it. You can't reduce it down to one.
I'm not an artist by trade, but I do a variety of artistic things for different purposes. I've made crystal window dangles because they are pretty. One of those has a weathered wood hanger, because I like wabi-sabi aesthetics and it contrasts nicely with the precise and brightly colored prisms. I've made memorial scrapbook pages in honor of my mother. That's art as healing, but also, as timebinding.
Look at the two approaches of art to potholes:
* Make it beautiful.
* Make it rude enough that the city will fix it.
Both of these are important public art, they are equally valid responses to the same problem, but they take opposite trajectories in attempting to solve it. Art does that a lot.