What can artists to respond to a world full of so much stuff?  We know about global issues, plights, we see so much, so many images it is difficult to connect to any one in particular, to sift through the masses of stuff! Are we desensitized by the sheer volume of what we see so that everything seems to be just one huge unmanageable issue?  Is there such an overload of stuff out there that artists have either too much competition for viewers (think of You Tube, the internet in general to say nothing of the usual barrage of media imagery) or just don't know what to address first so get mired in self indulgent productivity that then gets passed off by critics and curators as ‘art'?
Peter Plagens writes in March '10 Art in America magazine that what he wants "... from serious art is distillation".  I couldn't agree more.

The problem is that then artists have to engage in the world outside themselves.  The "self" makes the work but, in order to find relevance outside of the personal, there must be an awareness of the world to have something to respond to.

I find myself almost paralyzed into non-productivity because I talk myself out of most ideas of creative manufacture due to its seeming self-indulgence.  I like the idea of a personal line that separates the art/artist from the viewer but without something to draw the viewer into an even minimal level of familiarity and common ground, what's the point?

Another article in A in A Mar '10 about painter Irving Petlin's 50 year career by Peter Selz, suggests the possibility that a fundamental quality of painting is a commitment to current issues.  I love this suggestion that, yes indeed, the artist has a responsibility to address or at least acknowledge the world around him.

Hmmmmmmmm.

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