Wake up, sleeping beauty: Art's lost power in Europe

Europe has fallen into a peculiar slumber. Not the peaceful kind, but the numbing sort where art has become a well-behaved guest at the table, polite and predictable. We've dressed it up in museum glass, wrapped it in political correctness, and turned it into content for our feeds. Somewhere along the way, we forgot what art was actually for. Who dares to reclaim it?

©Prada Mode Abu Dhabi sonic & spatial immersion hosted by Theaster Gates

Art's domestication

Today's art landscape is a masterclass in missing the point. We have aestheticization without beauty, provocation without depth, politics without poetry. Art has learned to play it safe – safe enough to sell, safe enough to curate, safe enough to scroll past. We've traded transformation for transaction, wonder for widgets.

The problem isn't that art has become commercial or digital or political. The problem is that it has forgotten how to break us open. When was the last time a piece of art made you question everything? When did you last feel that electric jolt of recognition, that dangerous sense of being truly seen?

What we've lost and desperately need back

Art once promised us aliveness. The raw, uncomfortable, ecstatic kind of feeling alive. It offered creative courage, inner expansion, and soul-deep richness. It didn't ask permission to disturb us. It simply did.

Now? We get Instagram-ready installations and committee-approved provocations. We get art that explains itself before you've even looked at it. We get safety where we need risk, comfort where we need confrontation.

The wake-up call

So there's the uncomfortable question: Which brands, which institutions, which artists have the guts to shake art awake? Who's willing to fund the unpredictable, champion of uncomfortable, and release that wind of wild enthusiasm we've so carefully contained?

Because make no mistake, but engaging with real art is a gamble. It won't always sell well. It won't always photograph nicely. It might offend someone. It will definitely be messy. But nothing ventured, nothing gained. What we stand to gain is everything: the return of art that matters, that moves, that means something beyond the opening – no matter the place. And it should be in our everyday lives for sure.

©Prada Mode Abu Dhabi

Say yes to art

This is a call to demand more from art and from ourselves. To stop treating art as decoration or investment or virtue signal, and start treating it as what it truly is: a force for transformation. The sleeping beauty doesn't wake herself. Someone has to be brave enough to cut through the thorns. So who's it going to be?

Your truly,

Margot

MD'A sidenote: Theaster Gates (b. 1973) is internationally renowned for his interdisciplinary blend of social practice, performance, institution-building, painting, and sculpting, with his practice deeply rooted in African-American histories and culture, revolving around the transformation of objects, buildings, and communities by catalyzing development through art and cultural activity. He established projects such as "Dorchester Industries", a manufacturing platform that creates furniture, objects, and spaces using exceptional gut often overlooked materials sourced throughout the City of Chicago, or "Rebuild Foundation", a platform for art, cultural development, and neighborhood transformation.