CATEGORIES OR LIMITS?
Why do human beings always feel the need to categorize everything, assigning it a role and limiting it to its own definition and category?
Maybe it’s because only in this way—by categorizing everything—we manage to give meaning to what we see and experience; otherwise, would everything be an incomprehensible chaos? Perhaps the word incomprehensible is the key to all of this: we tend to assign a category and a definition to anything because we feel the need to understand the place we live in and what we see. We struggle to accept what we do not understand. However, living within these categories sometimes feels like living inside a prison: we feel limited. But in the end, is it even possible to live without categorizing and classifying everything? And if it is, can we do it with everything, or only with certain things?
If we take the world of art as an example: What or who sets the standards we rely on to judge a work of art? Who decides whether a piece is valid or not?
First of all, the standards are probably different for each genre. For realism, excellent technique is essential—but what about abstract art? If we stop at a superficial answer, it seems that the genre in which the artwork is classified determines the standards, guidelines, and criteria we use to analyze it. But who decided and formulated these guidelines, and how? Since rules cannot appear out of nowhere, someone must have written them, probably based on common traits shared by a group of artists who influenced one another, who had an idea, who had the courage to break the rules of their time and do things their own way. How many times has this behavior been considered wrong at first, only to be seen as innovative later? How many times has a simple idea, far from the conventions of its era, sparked a true movement capable of changing the rules or creating new ones?
So what would happen if we were faced with the absence of these well known categories? The only criterion we would inevitably rely on would probably be our personal taste—whether a work appeals to us (and is therefore valid) or not (and is not valid). We would rely solely on the feeling and impression it leaves us with, and perhaps this is the only criterion, the only thing that truly gives importance and value to a work. Because art is for human beings, it is an expression of the human being, and if it represents this, then it has fulfilled its purpose.
06/2026 NIMA
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