All art is essentially collage. The only originality left, claims artist David Salle, is the choice of what to borrow from. It has to do with seeing what is familiar. We live in a recycled culture. The worlds of commercial television and motion pictures are hooked to past hits because, with millions of dollars in production costs at stake, it's a better gamble to bet on what has been successful in the past than to try something new.
Originality is an expensive luxury.
Yet art forms that traditionally have been more amenable to innovation are themselves beginning to look a bit familiar and shopworn. There is a sense among some dismayed critics and observers, as yet vague and amorphous but gaining momentum, that we are at a critical juncture in the arts in this new century. We seem trapped in a pattern of doubling back, destined simply to keep repeating ourselves. Not everyone agrees that originality is on its last legs. Robert Pinsky, America's poet laureate, argued that the real problem for the arts isn't a lack of originality, but a longstanding unwillingness on the public's part to recognize and reward originality when it does show up.