By Garrison Frost

1.
Here's a general rule: beware of any art exhibit presented under the banner of "Art and Healing."

"Art and Healing" is one of many exhibit themes that art audiences find at various venues around the art-deprived South Bay. The Manhattan Beach Creative Arts Center features a whole series of art events around the theme on an annual basis. Even the august (for the South Bay, that is) Palos Verdes Arts Center visits the concept now and again.

Typically, an "Art and Healing" exhibit features work by artists who have used the act of creation to represent their individual healing process, or even used it as their healing process itself. Accompanying documentation — and their wouldn't be an "Art and Healing" show without accompanying documentation — normally contains story after story of lost loved ones, illness, disability and emotional wreckage. Often the stories are inspiring, detailing how the artist recovered health, dignity, peace or sanity through the artistic process. It's now wonder that curators are drawn to these presentations. Rarely does any venue have the opportunity to present such compelling narratives.

There is only one problem: It's not art.

2.
There are those who will argue that true art is that which serves no purpose whatsoever. To put art in a political, social or even psychological context is to rob it of its underlying aesthetic. In other words, art that serves any purpose other than aesthetic is advertisement. Of course, a reasonable observer would have to admit that there are exceptions to this dictum — so many that they might not even be considered exceptions at all — but nonetheless the logic seems sound.

Perhaps it's more illustrative to look at it from the perspective of "Art and Healing." In such an exhibit, the art is merely a by-product. The process of making the art is much more important to the narrative. What was the artist feeling when he or she made the art? How does the art reflect the struggle? That's very different from viewing the art on its own aesthetic terms. One could say that this is journalism, not art.

Another problem of "Art and Healing" exhibits is how the necessary documentation robs the viewers of the opportunity to interpret the art in the way they normally would. By making the artists' struggle such an integral part of the show forces the viewer to judge every work of art in accordance with that struggle. We are forced to search the piece for clues to the lost child, the cancer diagnosis or the sick relative, and moreover judge the art by how well it reflects the story. This is an essential drawback to "Art and Healing" exhibits. The artists not only try to capture their pain in their work, but they tell us in advance what they're trying to capture. The audience is never allowed to interpret the work for themselves; in fact, it is discouraged from doing so.

This is differs substantially from shows of Outsider Art, primitive art, naive art or even children's art. While the artists in these shows may be disabled, ill or suffering, it is not necessarily the subject of their work. While we are to some degree forced to view the art in the context of who created it, we are never limited by that context. Those shows are about the beauty of expression from alternative sources. The work stands alone aesthetically.

The work in an "Art and Healing" show does not stand alone aesthetically. By its very definition, it can't.

3.
There is another problem from which these shows also suffer: much of the art is often bad. I know that bad is a relative term that doesn't hold much credibility in art criticism, but most people know bad when they see it and thus it shouldn't be ignored. And any art exhibit for which the quality of the art is not the only basis for selection is bound to contain some work that is poorly executed.

Just because the artist has suffered, should his art be put on a wall for everyone to see? If the artist has used the process of art making to heal, does that mean that he's a good painter or sculptor or poet? Of course not, but this is the essential argument of an "Art and Healing" show.

4.
There is another reason to be suspicious of the "Art and Healing" show. This theme, along with some others which I won't venture to mention, are often used by certain venues to avoid controversy. That is one reason, the "Art and Healing" shows tend to flourish at venues where the exhibition of art is new, untested or even controversial. Put simply, "Art and Healing" is safe.

It is safe for the very reason that it is not technically art. It tells stories. It seems to document experiences. It is interactive, participatory. It does not challenge. In fact, it is not ""challengable". Who has the courage to tell a cancer patient that his painting depicting his struggle is poorly executed?

5.
There is a place in the world for "Art and Healing." The healing power of artistic expression is an accepted fact. Curators don't need to haul out the tired quotes from Sigmund Freud; this is something most of us are ready and willing to accept on its face.

But there is a difference between using the art making process to help the artist and putting the product of that effort on the wall for others to view.

Is it interesting? Sure. Is it art? No.

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