<P>This author discusses maintaining freedom of individual artistic expression.</P>
<P>The concerns of the artist and those of the purveyors of art are often confounded. Their motivations are, however, entirely distinct. Among the creators, a further division is significant: that between those who use already familiar materials, styles and forums by which to express themselves, and those who find some or all of these givens unsatisfactory. It is evidently the last group that most requires appropriate assistance, for the common routes to opportunity and recognition are generally closed to its members.</P>
<P>Experimenters merit support for compelling reasons, perhaps the foremost of which is defense against an error into which any of us might fall: an assumption that those artistic manifestations sustained by contemporary commercial interests actually reflect our condition and offer germaine aesthetic nourishment for contemporary lives. Have cultures ever been so predominantly addressed by voices from remote times and places? Although the intrinsic merit of established art from the past is clear, such works cannot possibly address our unparallelled condition - except by often strained analogy - and do not speak directly to our circumstances as contemporary individuals. Traditional art is of necessity abstracted from our reality, and therein resides much of its often comforting effect.</P>
This author discusses maintaining freedom of individual artistic expression.
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