changing lanes -- choosing highways

Art can change overnight. Consider movies in the thirties, an era of individual deprivation and amazing collective endeavors, roads, parks, and great monuments. Plots of popular movies were inane, preadolescent adult romance somehow meshed with visually spectacular, manically-drilled dance numbers culminating in overhead kaleidoscope abstractions featuring actual arms and legs. Entertaining no doubt, as well as worthy accomplishments considering the special effects were all staged, lit and performed on the spot.

There was a great war, a subsequent reevaluation, and people almost overnight saw themselves and thought of their lives differently. Gritty reality broke through on stage, later to become movies -- ‘long day’s journey,’ ‘streetcar,’ and ‘death of a salesman,’ a play about feeling used up and discarded by a corrupt and demeaning commercialism, such as that. Did art suddenly get better is the pretty good question, and from the outside it’s just a point of view, but at the time, in that moment, the answer was definitely ‘yes, tell us more about life as it’s lived. We don’t care about robotic showgirls anymore.’

When evaluating art, ‘good or bad’ is often not as good a question as is it appropriate for its time, and times change, tremors all around at the moment. How art changes is only conjecture at this point, just like every other thought about the future, but one thing sure, the whole ballpark is going to change shape, new lines, new scoreboard. Redefinition of the self will find reflection in what art goes on the walls, and lordy there’s room for almost anything up there now. The fifteen percent of us who ‘care’ about the arts have been using everybody’s money for their own pet projects, leaving walls in our community mostly blank, scattered posters, wildlife prints, and mall abstracts, just place-holders for original art, maybe someday.

Enigmatic contemporary art may just be a passing fancy, along with its public funding, and a better bet for actual community support would be the product of area studios, appropriate to this time and place, and it’s happening all around everywhere, or just emerging. There’s a reevaluation going on in politics, in personal identity, and the desire to own and live with art might turn out to be part of its expression, the way rock was for hippies, or words and jazz were for the beats. All the components are lining up like that’s what’s about to happen, galleries popping up in broom closets and art for sale on the walls of restaurants and salons. 

This isn’t about bringing in a new set of turnstiles, more about taking back the ability to see and judge art independently, individually. Who can doubt that more art up in houses and public spaces would contribute to a general prosperity of the spirit, a greater sense of well being and confidence all around? If this happens, if a broader portion of your neighbors take an interest in owning art, the character of art changes, its purpose and role in the community, and in individual lives, becomes more significant, and the transition will be transparent for all to see.