How Does Instinct Define Art?
and how does this question apply to fashion
After a long and blurry weekend, I woke up with a note in my phone as a lead for this article saying: How does instinct define art?
I guess between Art Basel and a wine festival, an interesting thought came to life, but to be honest, I have no fucking clue what my point was when I wrote that. Cheers to the teenage years, I guess. But I must admit, it is a good question to reflect on.
If last week I talked about Impressionism and I visited Musée d'Orsay, this weekend I’ve jumped into the middle of the most important contemporary art exhibition in the world. And the difference is huge. Well, first, because at Basel you meet a lot of buyers, collectors, and of course the most important galleries in the world, so your art dose is served with a side of business. And second, the art itself. Instead of Da Vinci's Last Supper, there was Ai WeiWei's LEGO version, Last Supper in Green (2022), an incredible masterpiece that takes shape through distance. Louis Vuitton's collaboration with Murakami couldn't miss in such a prestigious and colorful place, and around were sprinkled also a few iconic pieces from Andy Warhol, Basquiat, Magritte, Schiele, and of course Picasso, but they were not stealing the show from the contemporary art and installations.
So coming to the question How does instinct define art? It is a fairly relevant one in the contemporary art scene, and it traces back to our dear Impressionists. Because it was during the 19th century, when artists broke from the control of the academies and state commissions, that they started selling through art dealers.
If we think about it, art has always been an act of instinct. It often becomes a reflection of the artist's emotion or whatever is relevant to them at the moment. Ever since Impressionism, artists have been painting feelings rather than reality. Whether the subject is personal or political, the filter remains the artist's own perspective. Traditional art was born from mastery, precision, and imitation of reality. Contemporary art, on the other hand, starts from concept, a feeling, an instinct that becomes the invisible hand guiding how it takes form. It is not about depicting life, but distilling its essence.
As much as we like to believe art remains sacred, the market dictates what is seen, valued, and ultimately remembered. Every artist now dances between two instincts: the inner one that urges them to create something real, and the outer one that tells them what to sell. A great example is Yayoi Kusama. For decades, her obsessive, polka-dot-filled world was dismissed by the commercial art scene because it was too personal, too strange, too hard to sell. Yet she kept creating, guided purely by instinct. Decades later, the market finally caught up, and today she’s one of the most celebrated and profitable living artists. Her story proves that art led by instinct often precedes its own understanding. Another example is Banksy, whose work remains both approved and disapproved by the same system he critiques, a paradox that perfectly illustrates the ongoing tension between artistic meaning and market validation.
And what I love most about the question is how it can extend to fashion. Does instinct define fashion? The answer is absolutely yes. This unspoken language of how we dress, or in my case, how we design, reflects our moods or can express a statement toward a change we would like to make. If you look at the shows, you can tell how hard it is from season to season for designers to maintain the balance between a sellable product and the byproduct of the concept that inspired the collection. Margiela, Vivienne Westwood, Rick Owens, Pucci, they created for the sake of creation, breaking the boundaries of what a garment should look like and its functionality. Whereas Hermès, Vuitton, Gucci, they serve functional, high-quality products. Their goal is for your shoe to fit, your bag to have enough space, and yet they brought that to the rank of art. As of now, a Birkin is officially considered an investment. Yet the first group I mentioned reached commercial success on the same path Banksy did, by being their undeniable artistic selves, and so everyone buys their products because it makes them feel part of the artists’ inner circle.