art
/É‘rt/ [ahrt]
–noun
1. the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.
That’s one of the definitions for art according to Dictionary.com.
terâ‹…rorâ‹…ism
/ˈtɛrəˌrɪzəm/ [ter-uh-riz-uhm]
–noun
1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.
2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.
3. a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.
This is what they say about terrorism.
I was having a discussion about what art is recently and my answer is generally, “Anything meant to evoke a reaction.” The reply to this was, “That makes terrorism into art.” At first, I had to agree that my definition was too vague because of this but, after thinking about it more, I’m not so sure. Maybe my initial response was based wholly on the severely negative connotations of the word terrorism. People often claim that the United States is a terrorist organization because of the things we do around the world but, if you live here, that view isn’t very pronounced. Che Guevara is considered to have been a terrorist by some while people who agree with what his purpose was will say that he was a hero. Even people who appear to fit the exact definition of terrorist, like Osama bin Laden, are viewed in a completely different light by members of al-Qaeda who would say that he’s doing God’s work. Basically, one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter. With that in mind, terrorism becomes a lot more subjective and inserting the word art into its definition no longer requires a sense of disgust.
There are plenty of projects that have been undertaken that, while often provoking denial at first, have become widely considered to be works of art. You have John Cage’s 4′33″, Jackson Pollock’s abstract expressionism, David Smith’s Cubi sculptures, architecture to some people as a whole, and the list of borderline works of art can go on and on. Eventually, it seems that people decide that these things can be classified as art even if it’s only because they’ve stirred up so much conversation and curiosity. And isn’t that exactly what terrorism does? There are times when you can’t watch or read anything about current events without running into talk about terrorism. The whole purpose of these acts is to make a statement, to make people consider something they haven’t considered before. To me, there’s a blurry line here that doesn’t help solve the problem of defining art at all. Maybe that’s the point though. If art were definable then it might not be art at all. Either way, I think it’s food for thought that’s worth sharing.