It wasn’t until I saw photos from this year’s Kennedy Center Honors that I fully processed the devastation of having lived through an administration that eradicated all recognition of the arts.¹ U.S. arts workers are accustomed to living in a country where our work is dramatically underfunded² and undervalued, but at least we get the periodic gesture of appreciation from our leaders. For the past four years, there have been no arts in the white house, no nod of awareness, no acknowledgement of the value that arts provide.

It means something to me that the President, the Vice President, the Speaker of the House, and the Chief Justice were in attendance at the awards ceremony. I am intentionally not naming them because, in this context, it doesn’t matter to me who fills these roles or to which party they belong.³ Though it was intended as a symbolic gesture to have representatives from all three branches of government attend the ceremony, it is by no means an empty gesture. It means something that the people whom we put in charge, like them or not, stand up to applaud the essential contribution of artists to this country.

David Letterman, who introduced the awards, quipped, “This night is about the honorees whose unique gifts cross all boundaries and represent all parties from the left to the far left.” The joke’s funny because it’s true: the arts are viewed as a coastal, liberal concern that has nothing to do with the good folks in the middle of the country. The joke is also tragic because it couldn’t be less true.

A friend of mine who lived in NYC in the late 90s told me a story about the afternoon that Yo-Yo Ma accidentally left his 266-year-old cello in the trunk of a city cab. For four hours, the police worked with officers from the Taxi and Limousine Commission to try to track down the driver who’d given Mr. Ma and his cello a ride. The news swept through the city—by way of TV and radio broadcasts, before Twitter was a thing—like a telanovela unfolding in real time. My friend said that it felt like the whole city became invested in whether or not Mr. Ma would get his instrument back. When the news broke that the cab containing the cello was traveling back to dispatch, hordes of people—from every borough and background and walk of life—lined up to watch the reunion.

People care about having art in their lives and they care about the people who make it. Overwhelmingly, they understand the importance of popular music and more accessible types of performing arts because these are experiential art forms⁴. The reason that people undervalue and underappreciate the visual arts is, in large part, our fault. And by “our” I mean artists, arts writers, funding bodies, gallerists, curators, and museum professionals. We have worked very hard to make arts appreciation a cerebral exercise instead of a visceral one.

Whenever I hear someone say that they’re too intimidated to walk into a museum or a gallery because they don’t “get” art, I want to scream at our failings. There is nothing inherent to visual art that is less understandable or more opaque than any other mode of expression. The difference is in the way we present it. As exhibits A-Z I give you the following video, which is a compilation of all of the critical analyses that flooded the internet in the hours and days after Childish Gambino released the music video for “This is America.”

The compilation video, which has over 23 million views,⁵ contains the most nuanced theories and eagle-eyed observations about the artist’s intentions, cultural and political references, and choice of symbolism. It is a master class in art appreciation. When I ask myself why many of the people who ravenously, enthusiastically, and critically engage in the visual analysis of a music video would likely never do the same to, say, an Arvie Smith painting, I can only come up with one answer: because the painting is hanging in a white box.

Years ago, my oldest friend came to visit me on a day when I had to see a gallery show for work. She told me she was happy to wait in the car while I saw the exhibition, but I asked her to please join me. She did so, reluctantly. At the gallery, she looked intently at all the pieces but never said a word.⁶ Before leaving, I asked her what she thought of the show. She responded, “I don’t know anything about art so I don’t know how to talk about it.” Feeling like I was putting her on the spot, I waited until we got back in the car to dig a little deeper. “Is there a piece that stands out to you, for whatever reason?” “Yes,” she said, “but it’s not a smart reason. It just reminded me of something. It’s probably dumb.” At that point, I effectively forced her to tell me about it⁷ and we went on to have one of the most meaningful conversations about art that I have ever had. She had so many thoughts about color and composition and technique and semiotics. But she’d been convinced—by us—that she didn’t deserve to have an opinion.

We have trained people to think that they require intermediaries to “get” the very important art that hangs in very important spaces, much like the Catholic church tells its followers that they need a priest as a mediatory agent to get to God. We have indoctrinated naturally curious people with the idea that to comprehend a work of art in the correct way, one must absorb the curator’s statement, the wall text, the fancy essay in the exhibition brochure written by the fancy arts writer. Only then can one truly understand the significance of the piece.

The problem is that these things are most often written in a language that alienates the average viewer, distancing them from a potentially emotional or intimate experience with the work. To carry out the religion metaphor, it would be like going to confession to get closer to God and discovering that the person who is there to help you only speaks Latin.

In an ideal future, we would release works of art to the masses the way musicians release music videos, so that folks could loudly voice their assessments, opinions, and theories all over TikTok. Proponents of the “good art should speak for itself” philosophy would surely agree that this is the answer. But we do not live in an ideal future because we’ve created a system that makes people believe that they don’t have the right to their own assessments and opinions when it comes to fine art. They believe that such things are the purview of those who have more money, more education, more fill-in-the-blank than they do.

The solution—until we turn this ship around—is to make our communications about art warm, accessible, vulnerable, and easily understandable. I wish every artist statement read like the liner notes of your favorite album, that every wall text included the phrase “What do you think?”⁸ and that every arts writer was mandated to write, “I’m not sure, but here’s one theory,” at least once in every review.

It will take time to fundamentally change the way that people in all parts of the country interact with art, for Americans to feel embraced by fine art the way they are with music or film. But I believe we can do it, and that when we do we will see a massive shift—both philosophical and financial—in the way that this country appreciates and values the arts.