September/October 1984 RAIN Page 19 ................. Mural located at Ocean and Barnard Way in Santa Monica, California, executed by Arthur Mortimer (FROM: Street Murals) High Culture, Pop Culture, Popular Culture by F, Lansing Scott Art is what people go to see in museums, galleries, theaters, and concert halls. Some people, anyway. But most people have little contact with this kind of “high culture.” Art more often enters the lives of Americans in the form of "pop culture": TV movies, rock videos, art prints, and musical recordings, all of which people can enjoy at home. But although mass-produced pop culture has become more accessible—becoming part of "everyday life"—it is similar to high culture in that it creates a great distance between artist and audience. Art is something created by "someone else"— indeed, someone we will probably never know personally, someone who lives in a different world than we do. Both high culture and pop culture serve valuable functions in our society. Professional artists create works of beauty and genius that most of us could never hope to produce. We are enriched by our exposure to them. But so long as we remain only spectators, we are denying ourselves the chance to be enriched in other ways. Although our own works of art may not measure up to sophisticated aesthetic judgments, they enable us to shape a part of the world according to our own likes and dislikes; we can define our own values rather than merely accept values handed us by the "Art World." Removing art from the exclusive province of professionals and making it a thing all people can do gives voice to a multitude of passions that would otherwise remain silent. RAIN has always advocated the scaling down of massive, centralized institutions and technologies so that individuals and communities can control them. This principle can apply to the aesthetic realm as well as the technological. Grassroots art forms allow us to differentiate ourselves from mass culture by developing aesthetic values and expressions rooted in our communities. A social order of diverse, human-scale communities requires a strong "popular culture" in addition to high culture and pop culture. Such grassroots art often takes on a political character. In the first place, its very existence is political in the sense that it is an empowering experience for the people involved. If politics is about control, then taking control of the aesthetic realm of life in a society dominated by mass media and millionaire superstar celebrities is a political act. Cultural homogenization is itself a political issue in America. The development of local art forms fosters cultural pluralism and enhances community spirit. When communities develop their own artistic resources they can begin to give expression to the qualities that make them unique. An intricate cultural mosaic can come to replace the traditional American melting-pot stew. Also, grassroots art often explicitly promotes social awareness and change. Street theater and street murals often display political themes. American folk music, from Woodie Guthrie to Holly Near, has long sought to enlighten audiences regarding the important issues of the day. In Latin America, the Nueva Cancion (New Song) movement and other types of grassroots political culture play a significant part in the struggle for a better society. The nature of grassroots art makes it difficult for us to offer a generalized list of resources. The following access section presents examples of people and groups who are, in their own ways, reducing the separation between artist and audience, and seeking to make the world a little bit better. □ □
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