Where’s the Art in Your Life?

A popular opinion is that art is something that happens in a museum or a gallery or a theater or someplace like that, a special place reserved for the Arts.  
Because of this, we often think about art as something removed from everyday life.   

Humans have been producing art since before the Agricultural Revolution and museums, they're just not that old. Clearly humans do not need museums or galleries to have or make art.  

In the caves, human habitations were adorned with colored pictures that kept alive the experiences cave men had with the animals and as community (hand prints, hunting together). 

What happened, why don't we have more art in our daily experience with life, why don't we find more art experiences integrated into our normal days? 

Museums are associated with Imperialism because every “serious City” must have its own museum of painting, sculpture etc. devoted in part to exhibiting the greatness of an artistic past, and also display the loot gathered by its monarchs and the 1% while conquering other nations. 
For instance, Napoleon’s accumulation of the spoils that are in the Louvre museums frequently speaks and promotes national identity. The Louvre isn't just a place to see a painting by Degas or David. Its very existence promotes the idea of Paris as a cultural and artistic center. Art flows into Paris because Paris is a center of gravity that pulls art. Paris thus becomes a place of high culture, it's positioned at the top of a social hierarchy of taste and sophistication. 

Museums remove art from daily life, from the environment it was created for, and employ it to promote narratives of national pride and to signify Imperial Conquest. 
A funny story: when Mona Lisa was brought to NY, with great expenses and pomp, people flocked to see the painting. Andy Warhol said “they could have displayed a good print, the public couldn’t tell the difference. 
 
Money too has corrupted our experience of art. The typical collector is the capitalist who collects art implying his/her collection reflects and establishes their Superior Cultural Status. And you, as mortal, can only dream of that. 

This segregation from common life denies the works a native and spontaneous belonging to culture. When art objects are excluded in this way, they get the title of Fine Art and become disconnected from the natural experiences from which they were created. 

Another usurper of the Art function is the artist himself. Everyone is encouraged to pick up a pencil and “express themselves”. Since Art is a language, a complex metaphor, a shared experience, anyone is welcome to create art. But too many consider themselves artists and expect to fetch large sums of money just because the guy who stuck a banana to the wall did so. Or a woman who left an unmade bed in a museum became famous.  
Modesty would work miracles in the ranks of every IG doodler. If you return to the reason you picked up the pencil and drew something, ask yourself:  
1) did that act make me happy? If so, keep doing that.  
2) was I trying to prove something to myself and others? Good luck engaging in another yet competition.  
3) were you dreaming of fame and fortune because Picasso did it? Pick up an art appreciation course or an art history book and enjoy the reading. 

When Art builds up a walled island called Fine Art and leaves out all the other forms of artistic expression, it slides down into capitalist competition.  
People had already turned (themselves) into barometers of capitalist success:  
am I successful enough,  
am I beautiful enough,  
am I going to crash all competition? 

Losing Art to this system is losing one of the rescue lifeboats.  
There is rumor that GenZ are slowly realizing the future is in their hands. Duh! It’s not spectacular to write about it in the news but many younger people do take a closer look at nature and find pleasure in simple, cheaper things. One thing immediately becomes true: the places we live in are not only functional and void of esthetic experiences. 
In the tiny flat/room that a Japanese uses to hang his clothes from the ceiling, stack his shoes in one box and have a microwave in the corner, on a small table, close to the tatami where he sleeps there is always a place for a reproduction of art, a flower arrangement  and some small, kawaii figurines that jumped out of his manga books. 
 
When we create a distinction between the world of Fine Art and the world of popular culture we separate the art that happens in museums and theaters and the art that integrates into our daily lives.  This can divide Society still further into the privileged elite who tastefully appreciates Fine Art and those others who may like art but are not supposed to understand it properly.  
We all encounter art all of the time but don't recognize it as art-experience because the art object isn't coded as Fine Art or we don't believe the experience counts. 
You can find a meaningful connection between yourself and the other by engaging with the art of other individuals or other communities. There lies the potential for empathy and a sense of shared Humanity, 
We can continue to dismiss popular art as kitsch or unsophisticated and look down on the populations we see enjoying it OR, we can become curious and try to figure out what That work of art is doing for That Community. This offers the chance to better our understanding of the people that we share this space with. 

Thoughtful engagement with the world and reflection on aesthetic experience cultivates the exact habits necessary for a Democracy, it requires open-mindedness and a willingness to understand the perspectives and tastes of others. It points our attention in a common Direction and provides the foundation for discussion and democracy.  

Consider expanding your view of what Art does and discard the Zoo keepers’ verdict of Where Art can be experienced and Which Art should be disqualified as potential esthetic experience. That would allow the newfound experience function in your life.