Fine art used to be the shimmering cloud floating above the mundane visual world. No longer so for a long time now. Folk art, indigenous art, street art, design, fashion, film—all that stuff—have challenged the elitism of fine art.
This results in a more egalitarian visual universe where art of presence and substance and seriousness can emerge from anywhere. Art schools are places of flux and constant reassessment. Criteria are fuzzy and uncertain. Celebrity, money and politics—as always—are at play.
Making art in America is a curious and unpredictable venture in a curious and unpredictable cultural climate. But the saving virtue and what is never in question and always present is the driving passion and relentless need to make something that truly means something.
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