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editorial: 5 sks w

The Diesvelt/Wong incident (p.8,9} 10) stimulated a wide
debate among Foundation students as to the nature of responsibility
implicit in bringing work to the public eye. It brings out ques~
tions concerning the role of our educational institute.

With our pluralist artistic orientation, anything goes, from
barn paintings to found objects, from abstract aesthetics to de-
picted violence, to pure acts of emasculation and dismemberment.
The church has long since lost its authority, and the Academies of
Art have dissolved. Purists like Greenburg are now but one voice
within a whirlwind; innovators and debunkers like Duchamp have
extended our idea of ‘art'. This wide open field of art is not
yet understood or seriously not accepted by many within and without
our school. This milieu requires all participants to find their own
reasons and authority for valuing or dismissing works coming out
of this field. And it obliges all participants to take responsibil-
ity for. themselves. But as social beings, there is a moral respon-
sibility which shows concern and understanding for those of us

‘around us , and the public at large.

The art educational institute's role is to inform students of
all areas of creative endeavour, and so widen the individual's
horizon. The students moves from a position of naivete to that
of a fuller maturation through knowledge. Through information
and communication one's own values may be discovered. Nevertheless
education will not be helpful if it is forced rather than entered
into with personal interest. The educator plays a delicate game
of push and pull: pushing information and ideas at the studemt,
with empathy and faith; and pulling or drawing out the student's
inner resources and authentic concerns. The student plays this
crucial game as well by pulling in as many ideas as have a hisnt
of importance, and by pushing out the imaginative product of his/her
mind and heart. Time-Out is when a tussle starts happening!