Art has Always been Influenced By…
Many see much of the art created today as being purposefully garish, counter-culture works that are meant to be “in your face” pieces that make socio-political statements. The artists and their work today are experiencing more and more the global phenomenon--through increased technological capabilities--of being more culturally and politically blended together.
The hard and rigid boundaries--both culturally and nationally--that once separated, seem to be getting erased by things like the internet, global market place (and the need to do business internationally in that market place), and the ever increasing availability and ease of information exchange. However, the blending of cultures is not new to the world.
We have, since the beginning of man’s history, gone to other places in the world where we have been influenced by what we’ve seen. We’ve brought back bits and pieces of strange exotic cultures that were so spectacularly unbelievable, that we had to take a part of them with us to show the unbelievers back home.
In ancient history, people sketched and painted the things they saw in their world. In this way they made a record of what existed during their time. Like the way cave drawings showed the flora, fauna, and cultural and social norms of the cave-dwellers; or, the artifacts that explorers brought back as evidence of what they’d found. The internet and digital photography are doing this for art today. And the images of places and events in the world--images that without this advanced technology they would have no concept of--are finding their way into some forms of art.
But the art being created today really isn’t all that different than that of antiquity. Today, like that of history, still shows the cultural and social influences that profoundly affected and moved the artist to create. Today, however, through mass media and internet technology we are being fed--bombarded--with images of social upheaval, decadence, and decline on a global scale. We can no longer simply pull our shells back up over our heads and say “well, that’s happening over there and I don’t know anything about it, nor do I want to.” That attitude will no longer work because we can’t help but be influenced, and the art we are seeing created today reflects it. But it’s not a new phenomenon. The art of the past is full of social commentary as is seen in Francisco Goya’s Saturn Devouring One of His Sons. Since the beginning of existence we have been battling turmoil and chaos, and our art has reflected it.