Hymn to the Sun, from the Space Series.
The contemporary art institutions we see today, such as museums, universities, foundations, and cultural organizations, are not inherently the problem; art institutions are an embedded part of civilization. What has happened in the last 50–70 years is that these institutions have been commandeered by a postmodern ideology that is fundamentally anti-figurative, anti-cognitive, and rooted in nihilism. Postmodernism, for the moment, has occupied them, hollowing out the human foundations of art while continuing to use the institutional shell for authority. Because postmodernism rejects meaning, mastery, the figure, and the evolutionary role of art in human cognition, it is a historically vacuous and unsustainable worldview—existing like a parasite on legitimate institutions.
By contrast, figurative art represents the longest and most universal human tradition: a 40,000-year continuum that is older than cities, writing, religion, or philosophy. It is the catalyst of and support for human cognition. My work aligns with that lineage through the radiant sublime, eudaemonia, perceptual mastery, and the embodied human figure. By clearly articulating this perspective, I am not opposing institutions but reminding them of their true purpose. Postmodernism cannot endure because it severs itself from the very aesthetic and cognitive mechanisms that make humans human. Shining a light on both the role of figurative art since the dawn of humanity and on the absurdity of postmodernism hastens PM’s collapse, not by destroying institutions, but by revealing that a deeper, more human paradigm will take its place.
Home of Hymn to the Sun and Trudi Nicola’s beautiful poem to it: https://www.thedreamgate.org/the-dreamgate/hymn-to-the-sun
Michael Newberry 