[In-person] Curiosity Café — Art: What's the Point?

Art is a major and seemingly indispensable part of our culture. We browse art galleries, read literature, attend film screenings and concerts, and decorate our rooms with sculptures and paintings.

Opinions about the purpose and value of art, however, have been and remain deeply divided. Some contend that art – unlike cars, vaccines, and engineering degrees – has no function, or at least eludes or transcends conventional standards of utility. (“All art is quite useless,” wrote the Irish author Oscar Wilde in his foreword to The Picture of Dorian Gray.) Others contend that art can offer moral instruction or therapeutic benefit, or even galvanize social and political change. Artists themselves have variously described the creative process as sacred, therapeutic, emancipating, and miserable.

All this raises the question: What is the point of art? Is there a purpose to enjoying it — or creating it? Does art have a moral function? How is a work of art supposed to make you feel — or think? Does art always need a meaning or a message?

Join us at our next café, moderated by Being and Becoming's own Marybel Menzies and Adrian Ma, to discuss these and other art-related questions in a lively, collaborative, low-stakes setting.

Please also obtain a ticket here if you're attending this event.

You can support our organization by implementing optional “Pay-What-You-Can” tickets, in addition to the usual "Free Ticket" option. We ask that you consider making a donation when you RSVP to help us make our work and growth as an organization possible. (The ticketing page also has info about accessibility-related concerns at the venue.)

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This event is brought to you by Being and Becoming, a Toronto based non-profit. We aim to create community around exploring everyday concepts and experiences so that we may live more intentional, thoughtful, and meaningful lives. We use philosophy as a tool with which we can come to a richer understanding of the world around us.

By offering activities, spaces, and other opportunities for conversation and co-exploration, we hope to enable the meeting and fusion of individuals and their ideas. Everyone is welcome, regardless of background: indeed, we believe the journey is best undertaken alongside explorers from a variety of disciplines, cultures, backgrounds, and experiences.

Find out more about Being and Becoming here.

About the Curiosity Café Series:

For those of you who haven’t had the opportunity to join us at our Curiosity Cafés and are wondering what they’re all about: every two weeks, we invite members of our community to come out to the Madison Avenue Pub to engage in a collaborative exploration of our chosen topic. Through these events, we aim to build our community of people who like to think deeply about life’s big questions, and provide each other with some philosophical tools to dig deeper into whatever it is we are most curious about.