Statements
One of the functions of a living art is to activate experiences that may open and connect us to the deeper mystery as revealed through the creative forms and rhythms of our minds.
Art is the quintessentially human aspect which as a spiritual endeavor may fulfill vital needs not possible through natural processes alone.
Human beings must periodically renew a metaphysically informed and experienced content. Through such realizations, art forms may possess a true and active spiritual function for life.
The creative forms of the dream-like imagination point the way to greater spiritual potentialities. This order of content reflects or projects values and human aspirations for life.
Art forms that can integrate a creative inner order have the potential to foster larger and healthier human perspectives which must in the end transcend our economic, social and political concerns of the day.
Content that inspires and appeals to a deeper radiant side of life is indispensable for a spiritual renovation of cultures and individuals. This is to say, the dreams we most need are those that affirm and reveal a quintessentially human aspect within ourselves.
The most culturally significant art forms for the future will be those that have the power to affirm or reinforce the sometimes radical distinctions in people’s minds between the content of our practical social realms and that of the dream-like imagination in tune with our highest spiritual potentialities.
It is extremely important to have visible and accessible contemporary art works that can effectively reveal positive forms and rhythms of a vital inner order on the level of our shared humanity. In addition to proffering an essential content, such living expressions have a potential to creatively challenge prevailing ways of thinking and ideologies many of which have cut us off from our life-source.
The ground-breaking achievements of the 19th and 20th centuries have brought us entirely new fields of art and experience. More than simply the revelations of new styles, techniques, uses of materials and compositional formats, what we are now in possession of is an unprecedented potential for individual expressions of our innate content. This is the great unexplored domain of human experience of which we have hardly begun to scratch the surface.
The most noteworthy and remarkable artists since Modernism are those who, while assimilating influences, have been able to hold to their own unique identities. In this sense, to developmentally individuate a living art and process can be more important than to simply distinguish oneself as the first to employ a “new” concept, style, technique or use of materials. (P. Portoghese)
“Art is not a science advanced step by step by the industrious research of many members; on the contrary, it is a world of diversity. Every personality who can command the forms of expression befitting him has value here… Modernity means the facilitation of individuality.” (Paul Klee)
“If an art has boundaries at all–boundaries of its soul-become-form–they are historical and not technical or physiological boundaries. An art is an organism, not a system. There is no art-genus that runs through all the centuries and all the cultures. Every individual art… is once existent, and departs with its soul and its symbolism never to return.” (Oswald Spengler)
“In fact, art is an essential function of man, indispensable to individuals and communities alike, for which they have found a need ever since the earliest period of prehistory. Art and mankind are indissolubly linked… Through art, man expresses himself more fully, and thus understands and fulfills himself better. Through art, the world becomes closer and more comprehensible, more familiar… The individual or civilization that exists without art runs the risk of an asphyxia of the soul and a real moral breakdown.” (René Huyghe)