In today’s second On the Square feature, Gabriel Torretta considers the toddler that is taking the art world by storm :
Modern art’s greatest search is for a definition of itself. The meta-question—What is art?—often overwhelms the specific questions of art theory, like the nature of beauty, the use of symbol, and the like. Certainly most of us who have wandered through rooms of concatenated geometric shapes, blank canvases, piles of trash, and splatters of paint have felt, and maybe even entertained, the uncouth question: Why is this art?Chelsea’s Agora Gallery is running a show by an artist who, all unawares, is bringing that question to the fore yet again. Aelita Andre is four years old, and has been playing with paint since she was nine months old. The Gallery’s official page states that Andre “created her first significant body of work before reaching the age of two.”
We launched the First Things 2023 Year-End Campaign to keep articles like the one you just read free of charge to everyone.
Measured in dollars and cents, this doesn't make sense. But consider who is able to read First Things: pastors and priests, college students and professors, young professionals and families. Last year, we had more than three million unique readers on firstthings.com.
Informing and inspiring these people is why First Things doesn't only think in terms of dollars and cents. And it's why we urgently need your year-end support.
Will you give today?
