Art for the People or People for the Art?

Denis Leo Hegic (photo by Nemanja Maras)

Part I: The Great Illusion

Somewhere between state-funded kitsch and collector-funded vanity projects, art still pretends to be about “the people”. The phrase lingers at the end of every funding application, many biennale curatorial texts, and every desperate attempt to justify yet another “immersive” experience. But who are these people? Do they need art? Do they even want it?

In theory, public art has always been for the people - murals, statues in squares, state-sponsored operas. Even the church got involved, manipulating the peasants with some dramatic crucifixions while they starved. But in practice, public art has mostly been a mirror for those who pay for it. The Medici, the popes, the oil tycoons, the banks, the luxury brands. Public art or art in the public realm bends to the taste of its financiers, while the “people” stand in line, paying to take a selfie with it.

And what about the artists? Are they creating for the people? Unlikely. They are creating for their dealers, their collectors, their institutions. Or worse, for their own legend. The only thing more unbearable than an artist who claims to create “for the people” is an artist who claims to create only “for themselves”. Both are lying, just in different price brackets.

If we’re being honest, the relationship is upside-down. People are for the art. They provide the audience, the applause, the validation. They are the passive consumers, the walking wallets, the statistics in a museum's annual report. Even in the best-case scenario, where a piece of art does shake something inside a viewer, the exchange remains one-sided. Art takes. People give.

Or at least, that’s what the cynic would say…

Part II: The Secret Power of Art

And yet, despite all of this - despite the market, the institutions, the egos, the pretense - art refuses to stay locked in its golden cage. It slips through the cracks. A painting in a museum doesn’t care who owns it; it still stares back at whoever stops in front of it. A song written in a dictatorship will still echo in the streets when people need it most. Art has a way of escaping its handlers.

Even the most calculated, money-driven artwork has the potential to be misused by the people. A pop song meant to sell perfume turns into a protest anthem. A corporate-sponsored installation becomes a place where strangers sit and talk. A statue meant to glorify power is suddenly wearing a clown nose. No matter how tightly the system tries to control it, art never fully belongs to those who fund it.

And maybe that’s why people keep showing up. Maybe that’s why, despite overpriced tickets, bad curatorial texts, and the suffocating elitism of the art world, someone still stands in front of a painting and feels something. Maybe art isn’t about transaction at all. Maybe it’s about transmission - of meaning, of emotion, of memory. Because at the end of the day, people don’t need art to survive. But they need it to live.