Cleaning house and art in 2009

The opening page of Kanye West’s cover story in the latest issue of VIBE shows West in a humbled, downturned nod. An Andy Warhol quote superimposed on his face reads, “They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”

Given the context of the fan-base feud surrounding Kanye’s exploratory new album “808s and Heartbreaks,” the “hypebeast” entertainer argues in the interview that as one of the self-proclaimed greatest rappers alive, it is his duty to serve modernity by fusing great art.

As a generation that worships  pop art and the synthesized, we seem to be turning the artistic corner, and for some reason the things from our cultural past are influencing us now. We don’t quite have our finger on the potential for our times. However, in 2009, we just might get there.

After all, we’ve been there before.

Youth cultural movements in America have influenced and often dominated the art market, from the hippies to club culture. So if we haven’t cranked up the culture machine enough, our history in that area should provide us enough evidence to see that it’s possible.

When we, as a nation, reach a cusp, we must make a change – which, in the past, commonly happened when the people fought back against the disagreeable actions of the system.

In the 1960s, it was against the system dominating Vietnam and suburbia; in the 1980s, the system dominating Wall Street and suburbia; in the 1990s, well, it was mostly just the system dominating suburbia.

However, with the election of President Barack Obama, we have reached an interesting political turning point that curbs the need for such backlash.
In 2009, we should break through a numbed cusp of loosely cohesive beauties and create a new form of art that celebrates. It’s time to reawaken this sleepy expanse of cultural land.

We have done a great job of cultivating our resources for this art. We clearly see this in the way our generation worships the loosely definable entity in newer, weirder ways.

For example, our music blurs into waters of rock, electronic and hip-hop, and the other day, I almost bought 300 Garbage Pail Kids cards on eBay to use as wall trim.

Take a look at the cultural stuff you’ve collected and tell me it doesn’t make sense to you. Like all artists before us, it is time for us to gather our stuff, make a sensible idea of it all, and mold it into a solid form by which everyone will remember 2009.