Viewing page 11 of 16

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

2.

feel and assimilate and refine the multifarious details of human experience. He is a visionary able to see the configuration of the future in present things, like all people who work in the realm of ideas. He effects change - he chafes at the bit of entrenched conservatism - the custodians of conformity to dying social institutions. He, the artist, is in essence a non-conformist, thereby leaving himself open to suspect as to purpose and social usefullness. This leads inevitabily to an imbalance between the artist and society. He is forced to work, to a degree, in isolation. He even be driven to seek to live in a world of his own, that world so romantically referred to as the "ivory tower". Primitive society accepted the artist as functional, an integral part of its social structure - as vital to it's existence as the hunter and medicine man - and the artist responded with all the power of his gifts. The dilemma of the artist in society has been recurring throughout modern history. Today, this psychological burden overwhelms the artist's whole existence. He lives at the mercy of the market for art - he courts favor and glory - he performs for private patrons to satisfy his material needs, far to often to the extent of renouncing ideals and human values for the sake of expediency and monetary success. He contrives his theories and his art to justify this surrender to the will of little minds. It would appear from certain vantage points, overlooking the arena of the art world, that these artists are in the majority. They are not, I assure you. The majority of the artists of the world are moving into the light of life, and are not backed into the darkened corner of a studio or community. They are busy making their presense and work a part of the mighty creative battle for human enlightment. Thus as partisans in this struggle, the Negro artist can justify the building of this organization, for in so doing, he serves the cause of all artists and American culture.
Permit me to pose a question at this point, to call your attention to the fact that there are deeper, more profunnd [[profound]] questions to deal with in attempting to define the role of the artist or more specifically, the Negro artist in society. What is it that binds all artists, beyond the fact that they share a common tool