No Art Goes Unmediated By Other Art.

In America, Nostalgia For Things Is Apt To Set In Before They Go.

It Is Hard To Think Of Any Work Of Art Of Which One Can Say 'this Saved The Life Of One Jew, One Vietnamese, One Cambodian'. Specific Books, Perhaps; But As Far As One Can Tell, No Paintings Or Sculptures. The Difference Between Us And The Artists Of The 1920's Is That They They Thought Such A Work Of Art Could Be Made. Perhaps It Was A Certain Naivete That Made Them Think So. But It Is Certainly Our Loss That We Cannot.

Far From Affording Artists Continuous Inspiration, Mass-media Sources For Art Have Become A Dead End. They Have Combined With The Abstractness Of Institutional Art Teaching To Produce A Fine-arts Culture Given Over To Information And Not Experience. This Faithfully Echoes The Drain Of Concreteness From Modern Existence- The Reign Of Mere Unassimilated Data Instead Of Events That Gain Meaning By Being Absorbed Into The Fabric Of Imaginative Life.

The Desire To Be Primitive Was Very Much A Function Of Fin-de-siècle Imperialism; It Appealed To Strong Egos And Domineering Minds.

We Have Entered A Period Of Intolerance Which Combines, As It Sometimes Does In America, With A Sugary Taste For Euphemism. This Conjunction Fosters Events That Go Beyond The Wildest Dream Of Satire- If Satire Existed In America Anymore; Perhaps The Reason For Its Weakness Is That Reality Has Superseded It.