Saturday, January 15, 2011

a quote from Paco Underhill (interviewed by Tim Griffin, Artforum 4/08)

Paco Underhill: (...) You have to think in terms of the conscience of our culture, which is historically what the leading edge of art has been about: Where are people asking questions about what's going right and what's going wrong in the world in which we live? That role, I think, has been taken over by realms other than the art world as the world has gotten smaller--whether by the Natural Resources Defense Council or Greenpeace. So many issues that challenge us as a species now are not about politics, but rather morality. The idea that someone can be an avid ecologist and a fundamentalist Christian isn't a disconnect. Someone can be a member of both the Sierra Club and the National Rifle Association. And as the edges of our culture have become murkier, the role of the avant-garde has become, in a way, less necessary.
Tim Griffin: Hence, art's situation as a kind of social site above anything else?
Paco Underhill: Correct.

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