GOING TO WAR

GOING TO WAR

Friends, colleagues, Today is another one of those days – which seem to be coming with altogether too much frequency – where we might question the relevance of our art and the subjects discussed here to what goes on in the world. It seems our most proud historical and cultural foundations are being usurped. In… Read more »

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NewMusicBox Staff

Friends, colleagues,

Today is another one of those days – which seem to be coming with altogether too much frequency – where we might question the relevance of our art and the subjects discussed here to what goes on in the world.

It seems our most proud historical and cultural foundations are being usurped. In our cultural ecology, artists and teachers have a critical role in ensuring that intellectual diversity is sustained, and that humanistic ideals do not become an endangered species but are sustained as cultural resources for future generations. Artists must serve this function, creating space in the social dialogue where we demonstrate the utter necessity of art to the human spirit and intellectual plurality, at the same time that we understand art as a privilege and a gift. Like William Carlos Williams, “to believe proudly in love as a law and to stand for this clear intellectual belief permanently, so that a form be given to the reality in your own person.”

This forum is perhaps not necessarily where our voices are most needed, but the space should exist here for the voices of individual artists to express what they feel in another age of anxiety.