WHAT IS AN ARTIST?

Here is one conception: Abbie Hoffman once said, apparently, that trying to change the world without a counterculture is like trying to ski without snow. Exactly. Artists help to produce the counterculture in which change is possible. Never say to an artist, "your book (painting, play, music, whatever) is all very well but what are you going to do to change things?" To ask such a question is to oppose art to "action," as if we could take it for granted that art is not a form of action.