COLLECTIVE ART

From ERICH FROMM:

"Man in order to feel at home in the world must grasp is not only with his head,but with all his sences

his eyes,his ears,with all his body.He must act out with all his body what he think out with his brain.

Body and mind cannot be separated,in this or any other aspect.If man grasp the world an thus united

himself with it by thought,he creates philosophy,theology,myth and science.If man expresses his

grasp of the world by his sences,he create art and ritual,he creates songs,dance,drama,painting,

sculpture.Using the word "art",we are influenced by it usage in the modern sense,as a separete area

of life.We have on one hand the artist,a specialized profession-and on the other hand the admirer

and consumer of art.But this separation is a modern phenomenon.Not that there were not "artist"

in all great civilizations.

But what about a Gothic cathedral,a Catholic ritual,an I ndian rain dance A Japanese flower arrenge

-ment ,a folk dance,comunity singing?Are they art?Popular art?We have no word for it,because art in

a wide and general sense has lost it place in the world.

...I shall use "collective art" meaning the same as ritual:it means to respond to the world with our

sense in a meaninful,skilled,productive,active,shared way..



We are a culture of consumers.We "drink in"the movies,the crime reports, the licuor,the fun.There is

no active productive participation,no common unify expierence,no meaninful acting out,of significant

answer to life.What do we spect from our young generation?What are they to do when they have no

opportunity for meaningful,shared artistic activities?What else are they to do but to scape into

drinking,movie-daydreaming,crime, neurosis and insanity.


When he has overcome the primitive state of human sacrifice ,be it in the ritualistic form of aztecs

or in the secular form of war,when he has been able to regulate his relationship with nature

reasonable instead of blindly ,when things have truly become his servsnt rather than his idols,he will

be confronted with the truly human conflict and problems;he will have to be

advenuresome,courageous,imaginative,capable of suffering and of joy,but his power will be in the

serve of life,and not in the serve of death.The new phase of human history,if it caome to pass,will be

a new biginning,not an end."