We
feel that the essence of a human being is unfathomable. Clearly, in our society
this aspect of man has become increasingly overshadowed by his scientific
superstition on one hand and by a so-called demythologizing of religion and art
on the other. An attitude is spreading in which anything that cannot be
explained through formal reason and logic is looked upon as irrelevant or even
nonsensical. The reaction to this attitude is unfortunately a belief in the
irrational and nonsensical. The result of these two approaches to life in
general is quite naturally confusion, despair, and cynicism.
Art
has all too often become an intellectual and arbitrary game governed by the
rules of mass market profits and played by egocentric tricksters. A work of art
becomes primarily a marketable product whose success is determined by the
ability of the sales people to advertise and package it. For example, poetry,
one of the oldest art forms of man, tends to become a game of words and
accidental associations, a game which soon computers will be better at than man
himself.
What
is lost in all this is the depth of the human being, which can only be hinted at
by words like love, soul, intelligence, insight and so forth. It is this area
which escapes cogent knowledge but which is determining the very nature of man
and woman. We feel that it is in the nature of art, poetry, philosophy, and
religion to try to reveal some aspects of this unfathomable essence of man. This
act of revelation can of course not be a one-sided, static affair of the artist
or philosopher, but rather some kind of communication between a giving and a
receiving human being, where giving and receiving become mutual. In this
movement between two persons, a movement which is unpredictable, what is true
may reveal itself for a fleeting moment. It should be the honest endeavor of an
artist - and any human being - to make such moments possible.
And it is the good fortune of anyone to be attentive and aware in such
moments.