Rip Cronk: Californian muralist
Changing cultural paradigm
America is no longer the ‘melting pot’: it no longer assimilates minority groups into the majority culture. Instead of a homogeneous cultural majority imposing Western values on ethnic minorities, we now have heterogeneous cultural pluralism developing through acculturation.
New Cultural Paradigm: Community Art at the End of the Culture War
Mass culture is now composed of an array of equally entitled subcultures connected through a ubiquitous techno-social environment of camera phones, social networking on the internet and cable television channels dedicated to specific audiences.
The community mural and the changing cultural paradigm in America
Ironically, the autonomous self is dependent on immersion into culture. As a function of culture, the community mural inspires symbolic experiences of an actualisation process that reveal our potential as well as define our limitations. A subtle ‘leap of faith’ occurs as the viewer identifies with values and ideals expressed in the mural.
