Why Art?

by Eleanor Davis

Overview

This is a treatise on what makes art art, told in graphic novel form.

What is “Art”? It’s widely accepted that art serves an important function in society. But the concept falls under such an absurdly large umbrella and can manifest in so many different ways. Art can be self indulgent, goofy, serious, altruistic, evil, or expressive, or any number of other things. But how can it truly make lasting, positive change? In Why Art?, acclaimed graphic novelist Eleanor Davis (How To Be Happy) unpacks some of these concepts in ways both critical and positive, in an attempt to illuminate the highest possible potential an artwork might hope to achieve. A work of art unto itself, Davis leavens her exploration with a sense of humor and a thirst for challenging preconceptions of art worth of Magritte, instantly drawing the reader in as a willing accomplice in her quest.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781683960829
Publisher:	Fantagraphics Books
Publication date:	03/13/2018
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 6.60(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	16 Years

About the Author

Eleanor Davis is an award-winning cartoonist and illustrator. In 2009, Davis won the Eisner's Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award and was named one of Print magazine's New Visual Artists. Her books include How To Be Happy (2014), Why Art? (2018), and The Hard Tomorrow (2019), which won the LA Times Book Prize for Graphic Novels and Comics. She lives in Athens, GA, with her husband, fellow cartoonist Drew Weing.

Editorial Reviews

Davis wordlessly switches between images that are realistic and those that are abstract, a move that endows the book with an appealing tension from the outset, as well as with a kind of gag reel of effects that unfurls alongside nuggets of wisdom about art and audience. She shifts in this way from the didactic to the fabulist—and at her best moments melds the two…There is both whimsy and sharpness in the storytelling…Eccentric and visually inventive, answering all the many questions it raises, Why Art? is about the power that comes from creating.

The New York Times Book Review - Hillary L. Chute

★ 02/26/2018
Eisner Award–winner Davis (You & a Bike & a Road) seeks to answer eternal questions about the purpose of creativity in a metaphysical jaunt through the artistic process. In the closest thing this wide-ranging exploration has to a story, a group of artists, having had their gallery and artwork destroyed by a terrible storm, find refuge in creation. Davis sketches their journey with wry humor and her characteristic empathy. Opaque black pages symbolize art people “try hard not to look at” lest despair overwhelm them. Curly-edged doodles of fluff represent the “sweet artwork of no taste” that an audience consumes for mindless comfort. Artists themselves are depicted as nigh-magical, if often foolish: they make “talismans” for times of crisis, incorporate literal shark attacks into their performance pieces, and grow holes in their backs to house their children. Art, to Davis, is an obsession, a pathway, a curse, and a savior. But above all, her figures—big-bodied, yet rendered in the elegantly sparse line that has become her trademark—stumble ever forward, their journey the answer to the title’s question: Why art? Davis answers, precisely and with passion: why ever not? (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"Eccentric and visually inventive, answering all the many questions it raises, Why Art? is about the power that comes from creating. The art that we mold with our own hands shows us how to be strong; it shows us how to live."

The New York Times Book Review

"Eleanor Davis is widely hailed as one of the most interesting young cartoonists working today. In Why Art?, Davis takes as her subject the cartoonist’s unique process of creation. We’re absorbed—and implicated—in the excitement of the creative process"

The New Yorker

"By the end, you’ll be questioning your assumptions about the creative process and artistic consumption, and your awe for Davis will be all the stronger."

Vulture

"Davis’s central message is that, when it comes to art, everybody needs to lighten up. … With her surprising, off-kilter appreciations of art — and thanks to the virtuosic draftsmanship with which they’re executed — Why Art? adds up to a memorable work of, and about, art."

LA Review of Books

"Why Art? reflects the combination of empathy and imagination that has made Davis such a compelling cartoonist, and this graphic novel is an inspiring call to action for artists to create and audiences to engage."

The A.V. Club

"With a pinch of dry humour, Davis wrestles with the protean concept of art and tries to pin down why it exists and what function it can really serve in society."

Broken Frontier