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Many of the contradictions in Postmodern art come from the fact that we're trying to be artists in a democratic society. This is because in a democracy, the ideal is compromise. In art, it isn't.

Political art - not always a contradiction in terms - can destroy institutions, or eat away at them.

Artists and art institutions have to learn how to play hardball. A democratic society needs a democratic art and we have a right to demand it.

Art is about play and about transcendent meanings, not reducible to politics.

What strikes me is the fact that in our society, art has become something which is only related to objects, and not to individuals, or to life.

There are situations which cannot honorably be met by art.

A work of art has no importance whatever to society. It is only important to the individual.

Art knows neither doctrine nor idea; its nature is to show.

Our individual lives cannot, generally, be works of art unless the social order is also.

It's too simplistic to advance the notion of the autonomy of art as a reason for turning away from the public. You can have autonomy and simultaneously have connections with the social and political world.