The development of creative industries and the conception of art communication in Lithuania

Ideas and beliefs about revitalising powers of creative industries recently became most popular in thinking about both regional problems and exigencies of society and business. Disclosure of the exclusive world of art - a panacea for creative industries - needs a shift in the approaches to arts and artists, their place in society and market, as well as efforts to conceive art not only as a closed world of autonomous aesthetic conventions, but also as a process of communication, including creative consumption concurrent with giving and taking the meaning. The emergence of creative industries was primarily related with business transmitting ideas, images and experiences, whose value is dependent on the subjective interpretation of meanings of symbolic goods. The romantic conception of "Art for art's sake' is still popular in Lithuania, upheld by educational institutions as well as by users and artists themselves. The conception does not embolden art integration into market nor the perception and use of art as a stock in creative industries. Culture policy is still based on the hierarchical notion Of Culture and sacred art, not including market development and the expansion of creative industries. The art and society seclusion may be seen in the Lithuanian educational system. Empirical research of general education, additional training schools and heads of subdivisions of art academies and faculties of art in other higher education institutions shows that the conception of art is more frequently associated with entrenchment in the "world of art" and peer acknowledgement rather than understanding art as a social stock or a means of communication. The process of art communication is still understood as transmission of elaborate aesthetic standards of taste and the endeavour of society which respectfully educates itself for the appreciation of art.