I was struck today by the fact that it has been well over a hundred years since the advent of "modern" art. Picasso's "blue period" which everyone knows from college dorm posters was around 1901. Egon Schiele's sexually charged drawings of far-too-thin-and-young models raise the same reactions now that they did then, but flip through a magazine and many ads reflect this imagery. It has seeped into our consumer culture, but as art, it still challenges us.

I see the society at large viewpoint in the statement made by one of my ex-girlfriend's fairly unadventurous and socially conservative friends, who despite being a neo-con, was quite promiscuous- another of today's strange hybrid conflicts (...and the reason that abstinence education doesn't work, but that is a different rant). We were touring the Victoria Art Gallery, which is by no means a very cutting-edge artistic experience, browsing through the collections when we got to the Robert Bateman collection, whereupon she stated loudly: "finally, something I can understand!" I gave her a chance to give me her opinions on what she liked about them. There was one piece there that juxtaposed beautiful West Coast rainforest with a loaded logging truck and made a soft political statement. It turned out to be her least favorite piece. The rest she liked, mainly because they looked like you could reach out and pet them. I admire the draftsmanship, but I tried vainly to communicate my frustration at the complete lack of any narrative.

Modern art has been with us since the end of the century before last and we still greatly fear it as a general society. Very little has changed, yet everything has changed. We cling desperately to the latest technological advancement, that latest ephemeral entertainment: movies, video games; all the while anticipating the next thing down the path. We gleefully anticipate the arrival of the next big consumer product, yet to a large degree fear those things that make us look at ourselves and what we have produced and think.