Contemporary art and beyond

Life still exists. Life goes on. We still need answers, we still have problems to solve, issues to deal with, possibilities to make manifest, many things to learn and remember.

If what is called contemporary art wants nothing to with it, it is their problem, and as long as there are people who love life and art, and know that art still has a relevant and meaningful role to play in life, there will be art.

The idea that art is dead is just that: an idea.
The truth is art can still be significant in people’s lives, and that possibility will never vanish.

Those who want to make art an entertainment, will do so.
Those who want to make art a vehicle for spiritual growth, will do so.

Those who see in life nothing other than pain, struggle, competition and survival, will live that way.

Those who see in life the possibility of experiencing life, joy, growth and abundance, will live that way.

Contemporary art has made its choice, and it’s time to consider moving on.

Contemporary art stems from the fundamental notion that life is arbitrary and therefore absurd and meaningless. That human beings are only flesh and synaptic connections in a giant rock in an unfathomably large and desolate universe: for no reason. That there’s no transcendent purpose for life, only the obligation to perform its functions effectively: to survive and reproduce

That’s the story it tells. That’s the perspective many people see from today.

In essence, it is nihilistic in its core principles, and so it aims to destroy affirmative models of thinking and acting in the world by asserting “the artist’s creative freedom”, “the pursuit of complete originiality” and other similar notions which seem good in principle but which generate little to no value in their obtuse execution.

(the artist is never wholly free, but always operates within context and conditioning — accepting this is the first step toward true freedom of choice, which is mastery)

To be clear; I don’t believe this philosophy to be “bad” or “evil”, just incredibly counterproductive for the realization of all of life’s possibilities, for the experience of life in its complete depth.

Furthermore, I see this tendency as the darkest hour before dawn, the one which reveals the need to change and gives that change impulse. I see this moment as a part of a larger cycle, in which new understandings and ways of doing/being will come to be.

In truth, I see this moment in art preceding an artistic renaissance ( the characteristics of which I don’t know ), but only if we can get past the conflicting ideologies and recognize a common purpose for our seemingly disparate actions.