Blog: Object Culture Part III

Featured image: Released

Recently I read in one of my professional journals that artists rarely make a living with their art when they pursue it as an aesthetic experience.

Think about it. In the 60’s when abstract expressionism was all the rage, it was all about the aesthetic experience. Now in the 21st century, it is all about social classifications and injustice. It is all about object culture. Rarely, rarely, do we engage in aesthetic experiences and poetic expression.

Why, then, do we even put aesthetic experience in the public education art curriculums? Could it possibly be because those of us who believe in aesthetic experience and believe it is the only thing, the only thing, that will make us real? . And, because we believe it is the important “other” and that it offers a difference to object culture. True, if there were nothing like aesthetic culture to define object culture, then nothing would be important. There would be nothing to believe in. There would be no hope for the future, no innovation, no creativity. That would indeed be a sad day.

The problem is that there is still that very, very, tiny fraction of believer and there is still that overwhelming object culture. How do we find a balance that is technicolor and not monochromatic?