cultural relevance?

[Norman Watts <Norman_Watts@zzzzzzz>]

Bill,

As always, getting feedback initiates the process of clarification. In
other words, I begin to think of how I should have posed the question.
What I am driving at is this: Can sculpture, particularly stone
sculpture, still express something distinct (though subtle) that may
not be expressible in words, AND, can it do this relatively
unambiguously for most people who are members of the current "modern"
world?

*****************

Now some responses. I intentionally put these after rephrasing my
question to at least try to prevent cross-contamination from the
my-response-to-your-response cycle. So here they are:

I focused on stone sculpture because that is the prime interest of this
group. Some other sculpture is similar, e.g. abstracts in steel say,
but some is not -say modern poetry or drama. I'm just asking about
stone, though of course we are free to talk about other art forms.

I made no value judgments about "primitive" art, and I am not even
remotely proposing that anyone make things as they used to be.

Regarding the use of the word "history". Not being a historian I made a
technical mistake. What I mean is lower-case "history", or maybe "the
time span of human development". What I mean is some time, long ago,
before we thought the way we do now. And thought differently because
key concepts, that we "modern" people can never ever think away again,
did not exist. We are now forever aware of concepts that had not yet
occurred to earlier man (incidentally, we have lost others -non of us
truly identifies with a particular animal and its spirit. We barely
apologize to them, let alone think them holy). My reference to the
notion of "not having a concept of self" was mentioned only to
illustrate just how different people's thinking might have been.
Personally, I can't even imagine what it might have been like to be an
intelligent human being and yet have no concept of myself as being
separate. Similarly, how could they imagine knowing it?

I agree with you, its not about workmanship and aesthetics, its about
"other". That is my point. At some point in the past, sculpture
supposedly (SO I READ) was not about art, but about instructing, about
understanding, about making sense, about inspiring, about threatening.
Does anyone today, looking at a sculpture in some plaza, learn the
codes he must know to live in harmony with his society? Does anyone
learn to understand his relationship to his betters, or to a deity (and
believe it!)? Does anyone fear the depicted snarling lions and
hellfire?

So I'm not at all asking about the values I personally invest in the
object, e.g. due to simple familiarity or because it elicits fond
personal memories, but about values that someone else puts into it.
What exactly would a modern sculptor 'put into' a piece that powerfully
says something, not sayable in words, that is pertinent to our world?
There, I said it.

My apologies for the wordyness.