"Art's Bold New Direction"

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/specialsections/40th-anniversary/Arts-Bold-New-Direction.html

The article I chose for this week offers an insightful look into "Art's Bold New Direction" as given by Richard Koshalek, director of the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum.  In the article, Koshalek enthusiastically embraces an art world which he refers to as "changing at warp speed" and describes the museum's future efforts to promote engagement between art audiences and the ever-evolving methods of creation.  It is obvious, as Koshalek notes, that art has come leaps and bounds in terms of methodology and technology since, say, the days of Fragonard.  Nowadays, we carry artwork around with us all day long on our cellphones, though we rarely pause to recognize that fact.  This connection between art and our everyday lives is something that Koshalek emphasizes as his hope for the future and something that I find interesting and extremely relevant.  As our modern world revolves more and more around technology, it would seem to revolve less and less around the more artistic aspects of life--that is to say, recreational painting, sculpture, and the like.  However, as the article describes, this is not the case.  

Koshalek's two major initiatives for 2012 aim to enrich what he believes is "the primary responsibility of museums...to teach us to live life with greater imagination".  He supports the notion that "in the future, the art world will be even more liberated to make use of all the media around us", that it "will not perceived as something 'exotic' or marginalized--but rather as a normal mode of existence along with other pursuits".  Technology will not minimize art's influence in the world, but serve as an indispensable tool for the creative minds that will shape the society of the future.  The two, art and technology, are thus indefinitely fused into one boundlessly progressive entity that will define the human experience for many years to come.