It is often said that the power of art lies in its ability to make visible what usually remains unseen. For Heidegger this was the unique role of the artwork. A work of art does not simply represent an object but opens a world. Everyday things such as tables, shoes, and dishes remain absorbed in their function. They serve their purpose, but their deeper meaning stays hidden. This is why Heidegger believed that only art can break through the flatness of everyday life and open truth.
I want to question this idea. Is function only a cover? Might it be possible for functionality itself to open meaning?
When I look at an object critically, when I reflect on its durability, its design, and its comfort, it stops being neutral. It becomes part of my existence, shaping my mood and influencing how I spend my time with it.
A table makes this clear. If I see it only as a flat surface for eating, it remains gray and banal. But when I recognize its thoughtful design, its solidity, and its comfort, it opens differently. To sit at a strong and well-made table is to sit with greater calm and confidence. The table shapes my mood and frames the hours I spend around it. In this sense the table is never gray. On the contrary, it becomes a place where life gathers and memories take form.
Here function no longer means mere usefulness. To reflect critically on function is already a way of opening meaning. For this we do not even need an artwork. Everyday things already carry the weight we often ascribe only to art, if only we look attentively.
This way of thinking may remind us of Merleau-Ponty, for whom perception itself is already an opening. We see the world not as a neutral picture but as an experience that directly touches our body and our being. It may also recall Benjamin’s reflections on the aura of everyday objects, where time and history breathe into things and become perceptible through careful attention. And it can bring to mind Levinas’s insistence that meaning is always born in encounter, in relation to the other. What unites these perspectives is the thought that when attention moves beyond a passing glance and becomes a deeper form of seeing, it transforms both the object and the one who looks. Such attention opens the banal thing as a true companion of existence.
This is why I believe art does not hold a monopoly on opening. What truly opens meaning is not art itself but the critical gaze we bring to things. If you already see in this way, you are already living in art, even if you do not produce artworks or spend time around them. Art in this sense is not confined to objects in galleries but is a way of life, a style of attention that allows things to open their true significance.
Some might object that opening is too ideal a word, since art often seems to cover rather than disclose. But this is exactly what I mean: opening is itself a form of covering. It does not simply place meaning in front of us like a clear image. It requires effort, attention, and an inner attunement to truth. To understand that a table is truly good, or that a work of art is truly good, is already to encounter this opacity. It is the opaque moment of judgment when one thing makes me feel more at home, more grounded, more alive than another. Perhaps only I know why, and to someone else it may be completely incomprehensible. It can be explained, but never fully exhausted, and there will always remain something incommunicable, something a dog for instance could never grasp. When an artwork or even an ordinary tool opens such a space, what it gives is already the opacity of goodness. If goodness were transparent, everyone would create good art.
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