Idea Essay #2

I defy anyone who reads this to go an entire day without encountering some form of advertising. Just try to dodge all the brands we are bombarded with. But the question I am asking is can an ad be an art form? Just to expand the idea a bit, can art be used to persuade and remain art? The question can be tackled from numerous directions, and really doesn't have a clear answer, but I am going to try to show some arguments. Some advertisements are treated as art forms, just look at movie posters. Though, haven't the posters been repurposed, are they still treated as ads rather than as simply printed art? Art has been used to persuade for other purposes than simply buying and selling, look at propaganda. So is it still propaganda when it is collected for its historical or its aesthetic value? Advertisements can show regard for the technicalities of light and shadow and other formalist concerns. However, it does violate the formalist viewpoint that art is about the medium rather than persuasive or informative. Ads are more concerned with the placement of their product rather than what would create the best image. In my opinion, advertisements and other forms of persuasion cannot serve as art from a formalist perspective. Today, as most art is analyzed from either an expressivist or formalist view, if ads are not art from a formalist perspective, are they art from an expressivist viewpoint? Do ads or other types of persuasive imagery stir emotion? Yes, propaganda often tries to create fear, product advertisements may target everything from love to frustration. But, the emotion is something that the writer created to suit the product. Ads can be aesthetically beautiful, but simply being beautiful is not enough to qualify something as a work of art. Advertisements and propoganda may serve as art but only when they have been removed from their purpose as a means of persuasion and have been moved to the realm of the aesthetic. Until then, they are simply a pleasing form of persuasion rather than a part of a distinctly aesthetic experience. Therefore, despite the fact that ads and other forms of persuasion, may be beautiful, they cannot be considered a part of a distinctly aesthetic experience because they are more focused on the product rather than the medium or the emotions connected with it. Advertisements and propaganda can become art objects but only when they are removed from the realm of persuasion. --Laurel