A current Australian exhibition suggests art was first made to attract mates,signal dangers or mimic nature. But this reduces a mysterious impulse to a biological driveWhy did human beings invent art? Why carry out we make it, peer at it, or revere it and want to possess it?Mona (the Museum of venerable (respected because of age, distinguished) and current Art) in Tasmania offers some bold and provocative answers. I heard about its latest exhibition,On the Origins of Art, from participant Mat Collishaw, and whose art is nothing if not provocative and just the style to suit a museum that seems to want to be the thinking person’s Saatchi Gallery. Collishaw has created a zoetrope sculpture of fluttering hummingbirds to demonstrate the theory that early human beings evolved art for the same reason hummingbirds evolved gorgeous feathers and elaborate dances: to seduce the opposite sex.
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Source: theguardian.com