Yes it would be good to have another perspective on the subject.

There are one or two things that I want to add to my previous post because, at times, I feel we talking about different things here. Or rather we are talking about the same things but from two mutually exclusive directions. I shall do my best to explain.

When I talk about the fragmentation of the Postmodern leading to increased specialization, I am thinking here of the specialization of the observer not the artist. The comment that "with specialization comes entropy" refers to an entropy driven by and reflected back upon the observer. The important thing is that this is not the same mechanism causing the problems of entropy from the artists' point of view although it does cause another (entirely seperate) problem for the artist.

With the observer locked within his own personalized black hole, the artist must contend with the problems of Art AND the problems of the observer. If painting is anything it is a contract between painter and observer. My contention is that without the observer there is no painting as Art.

Painting (and Art in general) has always suffered from the problem that only the rich and important can afford it. It was kept alive because it formed part of the popular culture. That is no longer true.

I hope the above goes someway towards explaining my earlier post about the task of re-educating society rather (as well as) furthering the Art.

I always thought that the greatest Modernist triumph was the deconstruction of the aesthetic. I believe that the Postmodern artists attempted a reconstruction and failed.

If painting is to survive as an artform, what we (as artists) need is a completely new aesthetic AND a solution to the problem of the observer.