I suppose what I am saying is that Western art has in many ways lost its joyous quality. It has become an earnest hierarchy unto itself, in many ways exclusive and fashion or media driven; a pompous self congratulatory domain of prize-wining celebrity artists and curators, rampant commerce, baffling and convoluted art scholarship, and a cluster of cynical ambitions for power and fame – all at odds with art’s eternal, spiritual truth and sincerity.
The art world has substantially fallen victim to its own delusions and become like a high church wielding a repressive and unapproachable theology – often posing as something chic, cool, clever and hip – and massively self-important.
Yet in spite of this, in the life of the young, the alienated and the uninitiated, individuals begin to paint, people write poetry, create literature, compose music and struggle in their spirit as they have always done to give expression to some sublime emerging revelation within.As the old wellspring becomes dirty and muddy, a new spring bursts from the ground in an improbable faraway place.
Michael Leunig,
When I Talk to You
Harper Collins Publishers 2014 pp 11-13.