"Et si on remettait l'Eglise au milieu du Village"

Art, Culture or Pig?

When we talk about culture, we immediately think of museums, literature, cinema, etc. It's so true that cultural actors constantly seek support from public authorities to bring art to life, and the latter, convinced they are acting for the common good, proudly distribute their subsidies. Rather than wondering if the financing of art nowadays might serve to promote a cultural ideology, it seems essential to clarify what culture truly relies on.

Some will highlight that art distinguishes us from animals. Whether it's an aesthetic search to sublime nature or a spiritual quest to answer the meaning of existence, we see in art a way to transcend our animal condition. Thus, it's tempting to reduce culture to the defense of art and vice versa.

Hey, mom, what is culture?

When we watch a movie or listen to the latest hit song, we are more confronted with the cultural testimony of an era than with culture per se. We are invited to (re)discover the vision that an artist has or had of their time. Thus, what is sold to us as culture, isn't it first and foremost a cultural learning experience?

If attending a theater performance allows us to develop our sensitivity, in our role as spectators are we consuming culture or rather witnessing a cultural act? With his Bal du Moulin de la Galette, didn’t Renoir primarily create a work by painting a “simple” slice of cultural life in the 20th century?

Hey, dad, how are artists made?

ar from museums, exhibitions, and theaters, Times Square represents a true “open-air museum”. Whether we think of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, Alicia Keys, or contemplate the Guggenheim Museum, a masterpiece by Frank Lloyd Wright, isn’t our immersion into New York culture realized amidst the crowd, in bars, or at Central Park? But then, how many artists were born or inspired by the melting pot offered by the American way of life?

True culture is not found on movie screens, in museum works, nor even in the pages of the latest Joël Dicker. It exists in the social fabric of a society, at the heart of interactions between individuals who exchange, discuss, share a drink, a meal, or a dance. It emerges in daily life from which it draws its inspiration. It should be protected as we defend MAMCO or the Grand Théâtre de Genève.

It’s through the love of art that popular culture must defend itself on the front lines! This is how today's artists are born and grow, those who will testify to our era tomorrow. D.John"