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ART LIVE TURNS FIVE!
Please join us September 1 as we celebrate our annual global review of the state of things.
This year's creative drive is likened to beating a dead horse, on the one hand the intensity of the
conviction is admirable, while on the other there exists an element of blindsidedness. Such
determination is valiant, but is mired by its own conflictive nature.
The question of culture and its survival in a world brought too close too quickly has come to surface.
The assimilation into a new referential culture, losing distinction in stride with the loss of physical
boundaries and borders, has the purity of differences sacrificed at the hands of technological overkill.
A modern reflective now exists and the cry to return and hold on to cultural truths is persistent. Reliance
on mythos and the retelling of olde seems to preoccupy youth. The revalidation of historical lines of
thought are sought after and the unsequestered purity of ancient simplicity desired.
Displacement, loyalty and home,all questioned by the newly exiled, are under scrutiny. The emigrant
struggle and reclamation of place in both country and society runs prevalent in a world where the
powerful still attempt to suppress artistic expression and ignore the precedence of such ill conceived
notions.
An assemblage of like minds are in unison and their voices against complacency and the habitualization
of Man can be heard. The struggle to awaken society and help it come to terms with value and purpose
in the face of perpetual distraction is a fight not easily won. Paralleled to this desire to shake society from
its copacetic sleep is the direct contradiction of a persistent escapist movement. The desire to transport
and redirect society to a more personalized introverted reality weakens the promise of intellectual
evolution. The allure of respite is strong; the reemergence of fantastic landscapes offers solace as
contemplative future ventures.
Presently the world is lacking and seeking renewal of its relationship with nature along with a renewed
sense of discovery. Reining in the intangible through analytical trial has brought the discussion of the
natural world into play. It is a misguided attempt to rationalize and tame the shrew of free will. Through
cheap mimicry, from the frivolous to the near fanatical, attempts to recreate and better natural beauty by
unnatural means are at odds. The overeducated and overintellectualized battle through the creative
process blind to its wildness. As language is changed to suit contemporary needs the discourse and
redefinition of "natural" is falsely balanced alongside urban integrity.
Expanding on escapist virtues alternative realities to suit a generation longing for past glories have been
created only to be realized as hollow relics. As the aesthetic ideal is turned inside out , as re-imaging and
re-imagining diminishes humanity's ugliness to the point of comedic gesture, history obsessed youth
question the repetitiveness of Man's foibles.