Art for freedom art as freedom

Camden Art Gallery is pleased to announce an upcoming contemporary art exhibition
“ART FOR FREEDOM ART AS FREEDOM” curated by Stefania Carrozzini.
The exhibition is featured fourteen artists and is composed of twenty-five works including paintings, photographs, and works on paper, etching installation. The exhibition will be on view from March 8 to March 25, 2012, with the opening reception on March 8, 2012
Nowadays everybody talks about freedom. Yes, but what is freedom? And what role does art have in making human beings free? That art has never been able to bring about a revolution, we have known since times remote and perhaps it is only one of the many instruments which take part in the processes of liberation of the human being, a precious witness to the ways in which new forms of cultural communication emerge.
One has to ask oneself: is the artist free? And what is the freedom of the artist? And again, can art be energy able to generate propulsive forms so as to shake up our collective conscience?
If one of the premises which strongly animated the manifestos of the historical avant-gardes was the quest for freedom, in the present day, artists have already made their own and metabolized this historical conquest, however, it is also true that values have changed completely and aesthetic freedom and the freedom of the individual do not always coincide.
Adorno wrote in his Minima Moralia: “Freedom is not choosing between black and white, but freeing oneself from this prescribed choice”. Thus is it easier to focus the question, because, in the technical society, with the ever greater hope of individual freedom promised by Cyberspace, the contemporary artist no longer has the problem of the unconventional gesture, but of fitting in at court, in other words the entrance in full pomp into the system of art. In this marketing-oriented optic, the freedom of the artist loses its meaning.
Also freedom can turn into an instrument of control. And in these days of communication, the media frenzy creates monsters out of nothing, the universes of information are becoming more and more difficult to handle. In art today, where everyone can do everything, where everything is connected, there is the utopia of endless freedom. Nevertheless, human beings start their journey and their trek on this planet beginning with limits. The socratic “know yourself” is more than ever appropriate, beyond the disciplines with which we confront each other, as an instrument of freedom, as a guide and beacon for all free spirits.
Freedom and truth go together. Art is the ideal testing ground for these universal values, because the artist needs Freedom as one needs air, in order to express oneself and to communicate. Art is the highest form of celebration of human existence, because also in our lives as limited human beings, the entire process of liberation from the chains of ego has a luminous destiny and is a creative process. There is no freedom where there is no real communication.
Freedom of communication exists, the freedom to be oneself, freedom of thought, freedom from the chains of dependence, freedom from slavery, freedom of choice, freedom from what is known. Art for freedom is art for the human being who has his feet on the ground but his gaze turned skywards.
The word freedom is like the word love, so complex to explain and to define. Freedom, like love, is the opposite of fear. But freedom in order to be free, has to be true….and perhaps, as a paradox, that which enchains us also frees us. (S.C.)