Peter Brook & Calls for Artists

Shahar loaned me a book called “Conference of the Birds - The Story of Peter Brook in Africa” by John Heilpern’s. I found this in it:

“Obviously I don’t believe the status quo is healthy, I don’t believe it’s even promising. Single events flicker here and there. Different schools of theater come and go. A new playwright emerges. But I don’t see much hope in any of this because I don’t believe it begins to grapple with the essential problem. How to make theater absolutely and fundamentally necessary to people, as necessary as eating and sex? I  mean a theater which isn’t a watered down appendage or cultural decoration to life. I mean something that’s a simple organic necessity - as theater used to be and still is in certain societies. Make believe is necessity. It’s this quality, lost to Western industrialized societies, I’m searching for.”

Once in a while I indulge myself and submit  my art work to one of the endless ‘calls for artists’ that come to my attention (as a photographer this means choosing art work, writing an application, paying to have it submitted and then hoping to get picked out of the crowd). I did this today. I do this because I want to share my work with others. Yet every time I do this I feel disappointment - it’s not right and not relevant. This is part of an old and uninspiring paradigm which does nothing more then “decorate life”. There is more to art and It will be experienced when a real day-to-day meeting with audience takes place.