Have we considered that in the name of progress, we may be creating forces that compromise artistic sincerity? Are we truly cultivating artistic diversity, or are we promoting an artistic form that pushes traditional art into the shadows? Do we value truth in art, or do we mostly reward biographical achievement and economic success?

Perhaps I may be wrong in expressing my critique. But it appears that consumerism is producing a conditioning force within our cultures. As we focus our energy and effort on innovation, we tend to forget what role authentic art plays in our societal evolution. Soon, artists may become more entertainers of human emotions and desires, rather than revealers of the depths. Art will then lose its meaningful process, and it will turn, just like the rest, into a product of consumption. This is an issue we must consider and care what we leave behind while running passionately in the future.

The pressuring cultural shadow

I want to bring to our attention something that is conditioning the form of artistic creations. I call a status of socio-economic privilege covering our survival mode. When an artist does not have this status, artistic recognition will be difficult to achieve. Therefore, the artist has two choices: either adapting to the circumstances or withdrawing from the arts. The struggle continues. For an artist who believes in authenticity, adaptation also means “artistic death”. While withdrawal means self-abandonment. This is a prevailing condition in the art world. For it confines the style, appearance, and creative aesthetic of one’s creative work. To understand my view, we must consider that art is more than creating a good piece of work.

Many artworks appear to be made for public consumption, primarily serving entertaining purposes. Remember the banana thing? Maybe the guiding entities, such as cultural organisations, critics, curators, artists, historians, institutions, and people who support the arts, have lost track of their own shadow. I cannot tell, but certainly we are all responsible for building such an artistic scene. In practice, we should consider that our progressive philosophy is fencing the art scene and so disturbing artists’ original, sincere, and individual creative flow. Potentially, we educate our artists (especially young ones) to be mostly describers of the work, instead of believing in the language of art.

Technology is consolidating a kind of languor, marginalising thus the “so-called” traditional art and its techniques. Imagine Rembrandt never existed, and with him all valuable learnings and contributions to our cultures. Furthermore, imagine that he presents his work to an open competition. Excluding his artistic quality, his name and his historical trajectory are unknown to the jury. Now, I must raise a question: how much space will this art be ageing within the current art landscape?

In the contemporary discourse, some artists seemingly embrace these fences by admitting themselves to this predoom cultural element. Compromising their own creative freedom in the name of fame and monetary comfort appears desirable. And often, we hear more about how artists must develop business skills and less about artistic techniques and qualities. Here the search for the soul is suppressed.

A suppressed artistic soul means disconnecting evenly from the wisdom of “the explorer” and the spiritual nature. Therefore, living in a world where appearance and entertainment became a heavyweight in current cultures, art also becomes a product of mass consumption. Big companies are using artworks for profit; people use artworks for their own delight, and yet artists find it hard to live by creating only art. Institutions and organisations, decision-makers, government bodies, and societies seem to reflect on this cultural shadow when the problem appears. It feels like we promote a culture that paradoxically inspires artistic diversity while oppressing originality.

This is a systematic problem that we have embraced for so long without considering our traces throughout cultural development. Creating and enforcing a materialistic mindset is turning everything into business-like political, cultural, and social organisations. This is telling us to rest our rush and recognise our shadowy nature. If we do not turn the 'eye' inward and continue on this survival mode, our souls will transform into clients and art into a bargaining chip to cover the truth behind a beautiful screen. As a result, our culture will always fuse our life source with suffering – creating it with our own hands. Authenticity then will remain in solitude.

The struggle of the sincere

What I am expressing here points to the ongoing struggle of the sincere and authentic aspect of an artist who lives in a world full of competition and race. A big amount of his struggle arises from our digital transition, which is continuously growing in the arts. Concerned about the shadow of our cultures, I am not discarding the effort we put into creating programmes and institutional mechanisms to create elasticity within the art scene, which is a significant component of supporting artistic independence. Here again, I would like us to reflect even deeper.

Indirectly, most art opportunities predetermine creative opus through economic obligations from the artist’s side. So, limiting the artistic spirit that we are supposed to embrace during growth and professional experience. Instead of enriching the visual thinking mind manifested in physical artworks, we create a pressure-like force, compromising the artist’s originality, his artistic authenticity, and the sincere view coming out of genuine activity. Once again, the problem is hidden in the shadow of our profit-driven cultures. Paradoxically, we promote creative freedom within a cultural conditioning environment. For example, one’s proposal must conform to the language of an art call or art grant; authentic philosophical and artistic language will make it almost unbearable to win the race. Every day is becoming a competitive experience.

Competition will always trigger the survival mode. As a result, this conditioning element affects authentic thinking and expression in one’s creative endeavour. In the long term, this shows us that adaptation and creating works for social pleasure will be only a business matter. Whereas the cultivation of an original creative practice will no longer be central to the existence of artists in the world. Continuing on this issue, let me ask you to consider how much art opportunities mean to an artist.

Artists and art opportunities

Analogous to the artist’s authenticity or sincerity is the growing period of a child. Like children, artists need space to be vulnerable, intuitive, and sincere. Allowing children to navigate inner states freely, they grow into adults who understand their shadows. The same applies to the creative individual. But in a system obsessed with innovation and results, we risk erasing this developmental process. Inner fights will then be conditioned. To this inner nature of the “Self”, we owe our good and bad deeds. We often forget these sincere and authentic components while focusing mainly on innovative desires. It is central to look at the art landscape beyond its appearance and aesthetics.

Furthermore, within the art landscape, a phenomenon appears to force indirect artistic investigation as well as conditioning artistic performance. In building such a confined environment, perhaps unconscious of our traces, we repress the freedom of creation, directing artistic flow to conform mainly to pleasurable outcomes. Now, let us consider how we frame contemporary art today. Let us imagine those behind the scenes, defining what art is. What I am touching on here might sound tough, but I take the risk to lay it down. I must clarify that my aim is to trigger reflectiveness on the existence of a shadowy aspect within our cultures. So, most art opportunities comfort a certain form of art – which consists mainly of performative materiality represented by a screen or within digital hypnosis.

I must separate physical performance as an art form consisting of theatrical nature and keep it outside this criticism. Another element characterising the scene is the artist’s biography and network. Personal history means more or fewer opportunities. No matter the quality of the artworks, the biographical aspect often influences decision-making. Seeing this happen will little by little discourage artistic authenticity from the rest. But to build the culture we currently advocate, such as the vision promoted by Creative Europe, reforming the scene is essential.

We should remember that what we truly value in the arts must come to reality through practical implementation. And the tangible aspect of the arts cannot be entirely subsumed by the new coming art forms. Soothing our competitive mindset, or perhaps abolishing the profit-driven culture, will create emotional reconciliation between opposites that we have created so far.

Otherwise, we will continue to live under the shadow of our cultures and build suffering for the artists whose authenticity is central to their work. These artists will continue to struggle to make a living through their artworks. In this landscape, their sincerity will be as well as their originality. Pushed to compromise their art, conditioned to transform into creators whose purpose will be the end work, instead of experiencing, alive and freely, the entire process of creation, learning, being, and growing. The lifestyle we conduct will soon or later disturb the authentic component of the arts. It will challenge the existence of artistic diversity. Human history has shown that we are capable of developing brilliant ideas, such as technological progression.

However, we cannot escape our footprints. Technology is emphasising a kind of creative languor, further marginalising traditional art, wisdom, and its techniques. For me, this is a call to our reflective ability to foresee a future problem without creating it at first. We must reform our organisational systems to build a cultural landscape where artistic freedom flourishes without compromising sincerity. Cultural institutions must move beyond performative discourse and commit to practical inclusivity, where funding is not a race, but a genuine support system for diverse expression.

True societal development does not begin in politics or economics. It begins with creativity – rooted in human nature, transformed by authenticity. Let us remember: modern, contemporary, conceptual, digital – these are not inventions from nothing. All art forms we create stem from ancient acts of creativity, experiences, and memories that we inherit as part of our collective being.