Art Essays

The modernist tradition has stagnated in a pool of uninteresting and unskilled art. For the movement to begin once more, a period of self-reflection is necessary. These essays represent a reflection of the culture as a whole, as well as the artist’s place within it.

Women dominate the arts. They are overrepresented as students, teachers, curators, and marketers. Despite this domination, the most renowned artists are men. Perhaps the inequality of outcome can be attributed to a desire to promote female artists in a way that hinders word-of-mouth promotion.

Because the semantic boundaries of art have been corruted, pornographers have become accepted as artists and artists have been seen as pornographers. Personally, I think semantic boundaries are important and that the intention of the creator should determine whether they are seen as artists or pornographers.

While conceding that judgements of art are illusory social constructs, I think you can make judgements on art as much as you can make judgements on anything. It is just as valid to say good art as it is to say good wine, good food, good morals, or good attitude.

The public service has an ecessively large influence on the cultue of Australian art. Perhaps greater philantrophy from private individuals would diversify the culture by bringing in more of the daring, emotional, irrational, edgy and decadent art that the public service could not support.

Although the creation of art is for the self, the display of art is for others. Therefore, art that disregards the public really has little place in the public domain.

In 2008, a Bill Henson exhibition was the subject of a police investigation after it emerged that it contained photos of naked children. In defence of himself, Henson said:

"The greatness of art comes from ambiguities, which is another way of saying it stops us from knowing what to think. It redeems us from a world of moralism and opinionation and claptrap."

Hensen's comment revealed some of the difficulties artists have had with morality as well as some of the difficulties the public have had with artists.

For most of the history of civilisation, art has been a medium of praise. In Europe this changed as a result of the Dada movement who introduced the dimension of criticism.

In some ways, the creation of art is similar to meditation or prayer. The similarities of process naturally influence the choice of subject matters.

Although many species are creative, only humans can be creative in a way that differs from a genetically coded process. Furthermore, humans are the only species that are creative without trying to achieve a pragmatic purpose or clearly defined purpose. In other words, humans are the only species that can create art.

In Australia, the dominant morality in the art community proposes that it is acceptable for Caucasian Australians to appropriate from Europe and America, but not from Africa and Asia. In some ways, the morality can be seen as a cultural legacy of the White Australia Policy. Although it is well-intentioned, it is resulting in race-based identities and unequal development reminiscent of apartheid South Africa. Considering that Australia's three largest trading partners are Asian, it is an ideology that must be challenged, not only for Australia's prosperity, but also to bring truth to the myth that artists are on the frontier of change, not bringing up the rear.

Modern art needs less avant-garde and more renaissance