Part 1

Contemporary art: schools, main ideas and forms

Points for discussion

1. We live in the era of economic globalization. How does it influence on cultural life of different countries?

2. in our world increasingly difficult to distinguish one from the other. We live in total society.

3. Television, video and computers offered new possibilities for art but were also seen as having the power to dull real experience and to fuse the real and imaginary.

4. What do you think about the avant-garde ideal of uniting art and life?

5. Two or three decades ago avant-garde artists believed that art and artistic representation had the potential to change the society. In present-day society there is absence of an idealistic and Utopian framework. What do you think about the part of arts in up-to-date society?

б. same people celebrate the artist as alchemist revealing magic in base material. sand ordinary things. What is your attitude to artists? How do you estimate their influence on the conscious of the society?

Read the extracts From the book Arts under pressure Promoting Cultural

diversity in the Age of Globalization by Joost smiers.

You can use terms, special words and information from them to prepare your

speech at discussion.

About the book

Arts Under Pressure analyses the relevant forces behind decision making in

cultural matters worldwide — specifically in the field of the arts — under the

influence of economic globalization.

About the author

Joost siniers is Professor of Political science of the Arts at the Utrecht school of

the Arts, the Netherlands, and formerly Visiting Professor, Department of World

Arts and Cultures, UCLA, Los Angeles. He is а board member of the European

Research Institute for Comparative Cultural Policy and the Arts (ERICArts).

Introduction

This is a book about the arts. In it I ask what local artistic life remains in the era

of economic globalization, and why this is a question that needs to be discussed.

Music, theatre, dance, design, television, films, stories, poetry, songs, paintings,

sculptures and photographs are essential forms of communication in every society.

The arts can inform us about our deepest feelings; they can give us pleasure; they

can accompany in times of sadness; they can entertain us; they are ofien used to

entice or persuade us in one way or another. In some societies, various forms of

artistic expression have been banned, considered to be offensive or dangerous. In

more and more societies people are con&onted with visual images or suЬjесt~d to

background music almost every moment of the day. :

The arts have never been marginal. And today they are less so that ever.

Advertisements use artistic creations. Films, video and music are all big business,

as in the book industry. Some parts of the visual arts world are as precarious as the

stock market, with huge sums of money hanging hands. The Internet is becoming

an effective transmitter of a great variety of artistic creation. Meanwhile, hundreds

of thousands of artists are trying to make a more or less modest living from their

work, and only a few make considerably more than that.

What have these observations to do with economic globalization and worldwide

free trade? Or to put it the other way round: why are the arts important in any

society, and why should they be connected with a particular society rather than

reflecting the influence of cultural and economic forces operating at the global level ? The answer is: democracy. А characteristic of democracy is that many

different voices can be heard and many different opinions expressed. The public

domain in any democratic society is the mental and physical space in which the

exchange of ideas and an open debate about all sorts of questions can take place

without interference from state agents, who may have their own agenda or from

commercial forces whose only purpose is to sell as much as they can:

The arts are crucial to democratic debate and to the process of responding,

emotionally and otherwise, to the multitude of questions that life raises. For this to

happen, a wide diversity of forms of expression and channels of communication is

needed. Along with other factors, people’s opinions are formed by the books they

read, the music they hear, the films they watch and the images thy see — not always

at rational level. The arts, which in this book include all forms of entertainment

and design, touch our often hidden emotions and drives, our perceptions of

ourselves, our hopes and our desires.

It can happen that artistic creations coming from different parts of the world

have the impact on specific groups of people within a particular society at a

certain moment in history. Nevertheless, it is important that a substantial part of

artistic communication reflects, without being nostalgic, what is going on in any

given community, including those formed through the Internet or linking

people in various countries and regions. It would be a loss of none of the

sentiments expressed in the arts was no longer related to the conflicts, the desire

for соnvi~’iаlitу, the way people enjoy themselves , the specific kinds of humor

and aesthetic preferences that are to be found in a particular society.

Moreover, it is important that within any society a diversity of forms of artistic

expression is created and distributed by a diversity of producers and distributors.

People are different; and what is more human that hoping to find forms of theatre,

music, visual arts, literature or films that express adequately one’s own

confusions, feelings of delight or aesthetic tastes?

If it is vital to democracy that the arts are created and presented in a way that

relates, at least to some extent, to individual societies, one way wonder what the

effects of economic globalizations are. All things considered, respect for local

endeavours is not a priority in the system of worldwide free trade. Does it bесоще

harder for artists to et there work distributed to a significant extent in their own•

surroundings? Does it mean that throughout the world most public attention would

be focused on a limited number of artistic products and their creators that are

promoted everywhere? Does it mean that taste will be homogenized worldwide?

Or world it be more accurate to speak ~ delocalization” taking place

everywhere?

There the kinds of issues I shall address in this book. Not forgetting that all over

the world many, many artists continue to create and perform exciting works of arts.

Translate these words and expressions: local artistic life, era of economic

globalizaiion, essential forms of communication, deepest feelings, various forms

of artistic expression, considered to be offensive or dangerous, visual images,

as precarious as the stock market, meanwhile, an effective transmitter, а great

Variety of artistic creations, to make a more or less modest living &om their work,

considerably, observations, worldwide &ee trade, to put in the other way round,

а particular society, at the global level, many different opinions expressed, the

public domain, the mental and physical space, the exchange of ideas, an open de-

bate, commercial forces, interference &om state agenda, the process of responding,

otherwise, to the multitude of questions that life raises, a wide diversity of forms of

expression, channel of communications, along with other factors, people’s

opinions, at the rational level, include all forms of entertainment and design,

hidden emotions and drives, our perceptions of ourselves, our hopes and desires,

the artistic creations, an impact on specific groups of people, to reflect, at certain

moment ii history, nevertheless, the specific kind of humour and aesthetic

preferences, moreover, what is more, individual societies, all things considered,

is not a priority in the system of worldwide &ee trade, the kinds of issues.

From Chapter 1 The Arts and the World.