“Artists are here to disturb the peace”, “Artists are here to disturb your peace” is the famous phrase of the playwright, essayist, poet and activist James Baldwin. This phrase came to me last week while diving into the musical odyssey of Rosalíadrawn on his new Motomami album. The name of Rosalía it sounded around me without my feeling called upon to meet it. Until a few days ago at a party it started to ring Chicken Teriyaki.
The originality, the rhythm and the vibration of the theme immediately shook me as I identified its author: Rosalía. From there, guided by curiosity, I began to investigate about her and of course to listen to more songs from his latest album: Saoko, Hentai… to which more brutal and groundbreaking.
A friend told me: to me Rosalía I do not like it. But art does not have to like. On the contrary, when art fulfills its function, it stirs something inside us. The cubist work of Picasso or the sculptures of Chillida They are clear examples for me. The question is not whether I like them or not, the effect of seeing their works is that they alter something inside me, generate an experience and put me in contact with a reality that was not available to me before. That, according to the physical and mystical David Bohm it is the function in which art and science touch. Because both reveal facets of reality hidden from the naked eye. Science reveals to us the invisible structure of things while art can reveal to us the implicate orderusing a term coined by Bohmthe hidden structure from which the visible emanates.
The function of art is often unconscious. When we watch a movie or are exposed to any work of art, regardless of whether we liked it or not, our unconscious has drunk from it and has recomposed the pieces of the puzzle that it needed. This is the theory of the function of the great myths according Joseph Campbell and that I subscribe. Because each work of art, in its own way, condenses all the art that has been created up to that moment, reformulating it.
For this reason I invite you to expose yourself to art. Painting, sculpture, music, theater, movies, novels… The more live and direct, the better. Absorb it and then ask yourself what impact it has had on you. Look for true art, not mere substitutes. If you expose yourself enough, you will be able to discern the one from the other without problem. Oh, and when you do it, suffer, tear yourself apart, get inspired, enjoy and above all…don’t try to understand it.
When you do it with the last album of Rosalía You will surely discover that… you are already one motomami 😉
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