Is it Art if it's made for someone else?

The government has always wanted to use art in a way that would benefit them, but the question is, do they know and appreciate what art is? Government funding and grants toward artists are becoming not only rare because the governments do not understand the direction art is going in right now, but also because it doesn't appeal to the select few politically and/or morally. Maplethorp is a well known artist who people admire for his shocking photographs, but only shocking to a conservative society, but he is not as disliked by the government as is a political painting with politically influential people in it. This brings me to my point; how can an artist get money from either public or private grant givers if these people are influenced by a government that tries to control the direction of art, and how could an artist live in a society that doesn't allow the progressing in lifestyle and society if it is owned and controlled by an exterior motive? Long sentance, i know. Art for arts sake doesn't exhist when economy and public display becomes part of it.
Arthur

Time...

The reading and even the class session made me consider "intellectual masterbation". What is the point of writing a piece or having a show that only a select few can understand? Why would anyone put in the time to try to understand something that overall doesn't change their lives nor does anything for them except either confuse or aggravate them? I consider myself an intellect, scholarly, and worldly wise; but trying to undersand nonsense from a persons unconscious (which is already confusing enough) is either impossible or pointless. Where did academia go? It makes me think about (and i know it's totally off topic) about weightlifting and sculpting a body that is universally excepted as perfect. Now-a-days people who want to create the perfect body take pills, steroids, or any foreign substance that hurry the process of getting big. What happened to good old fashioned hard work. It stands the same for academia, where's the hard work? If we as people do not filter out the bull shit that we get fed by what i liked to call "open minded foolishness", the all of us are going to get lost in a sea ideas without proof of being genuine.
I just don't get it...
Arthur