How does it feel to drive the wrong way against traffic, busloads of tourists wave from windows and ferraris rocket by? Dangerous as it sounds there’s comfort in knowing it’s the right direction, that the destination is worth all the dirty looks. In a previous post, I found myself dissing most of ‘modern art,’ and to tell the truth it felt pretty good, like exposing a cult. I’ve always been skeptical anyway, everyone nodding and smiling at preposterous assertions. Can an all-white painting be significant, is cannibalizing other people’s art being creative, does being a celebrity, knowing a celebrity, or wanting to be a celebrity make art any better?
I’m here to report the traffic thins, there’s less dodging and more cruising, and I can see others coming up behind me in the rearview. Polarities reverse and energies realign, art starts making sense to ordinary people while experts find their myth-based orthodoxy sounding preposterous even to them. Why is this happening now? Every so often the serfs rise up, usually when conditions become intolerable forcing people recognize their commonality with others. Did someone mention art? It’s not for nothing artists are repressed in authoritarian systems, harassed and imprisoned, and it isn’t for being directly political. People in charge want everyone facing forward, focused on them, and actively discourage anyone from looking sideways, at each other. They don’t like art.
They won’t say that, that they don’t like art, because it sounds barbaric, anti-human, so instead they say they like a certain kind of art better, essentially a form of advertising for their particular silo of corn. The church used art to arrange reality so that the clergy always ate well, and fascists love uniformity and depictions of unending happiness, don’t know why. In nominal democracies they use a different approach. In the name of support for art and artists they insist art become a tax-dependent charity. They water parts of the garden and let others go dry, disenfranchising whole segments of the population, both artists and their natural audience. This self-sanctioning favoritism trickles down through museums and teaching establishments, non-profits and foundations, determining grants and accolades, but not for artists who make pictures or anyone who might be interested in them.
The evidence for this assertion is everywhere, in museums, in faculty art shows, in the way so-called contemporary art dominates non-profit galleries and tilts awards toward artists already receiving state support. Now if you happen to be an arts professional on salary you’ll already have your fingers in your ears -- la la la, but the train leaves the station anyway. In my little corner, murals grace parking lots, people paint outdoors in groups, and it’s my guess this is happening everywhere across the land. Pretty soon the government loses control, the culture asserts itself, and art becomes a viable, self-sustaining component of daily life and the expression of a thoughtful, rational, advanced civilization -- a wide open highway.
I’m here to report the traffic thins, there’s less dodging and more cruising, and I can see others coming up behind me in the rearview. Polarities reverse and energies realign, art starts making sense to ordinary people while experts find their myth-based orthodoxy sounding preposterous even to them. Why is this happening now? Every so often the serfs rise up, usually when conditions become intolerable forcing people recognize their commonality with others. Did someone mention art? It’s not for nothing artists are repressed in authoritarian systems, harassed and imprisoned, and it isn’t for being directly political. People in charge want everyone facing forward, focused on them, and actively discourage anyone from looking sideways, at each other. They don’t like art.
They won’t say that, that they don’t like art, because it sounds barbaric, anti-human, so instead they say they like a certain kind of art better, essentially a form of advertising for their particular silo of corn. The church used art to arrange reality so that the clergy always ate well, and fascists love uniformity and depictions of unending happiness, don’t know why. In nominal democracies they use a different approach. In the name of support for art and artists they insist art become a tax-dependent charity. They water parts of the garden and let others go dry, disenfranchising whole segments of the population, both artists and their natural audience. This self-sanctioning favoritism trickles down through museums and teaching establishments, non-profits and foundations, determining grants and accolades, but not for artists who make pictures or anyone who might be interested in them.
The evidence for this assertion is everywhere, in museums, in faculty art shows, in the way so-called contemporary art dominates non-profit galleries and tilts awards toward artists already receiving state support. Now if you happen to be an arts professional on salary you’ll already have your fingers in your ears -- la la la, but the train leaves the station anyway. In my little corner, murals grace parking lots, people paint outdoors in groups, and it’s my guess this is happening everywhere across the land. Pretty soon the government loses control, the culture asserts itself, and art becomes a viable, self-sustaining component of daily life and the expression of a thoughtful, rational, advanced civilization -- a wide open highway.
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