Capitalism is an economic system that allows people with intelligence and self-discipline to rise above the social station of their parents, to own a home, to earn a degree, to make a million, but no matter how you slice it the ten percent at the top will see themselves as precious and apart, while the ten percent at the bottom are pushed off the bus, can’t be avoided. Social programs reduce the horror, pensions and welfare, but facing it alone can be daunting, and no matter where you start, it’s all a trapeze act over a gaping, pitiless abyss, aka failure, drug addiction, and poverty -- living on the street.
Life and death competition from an early age isn’t something we invented, most creatures in nature face a similar situation, but this modern version has been wonderfully productive as compared to caliphates and kingdoms, clans and collectives. Desperation and glory come to the dance arm in arm, and taking dire chances produces the advancement we see expanding geometric as we speak. This crucible of the open market, oddly enough, does not drive art these days, which resembles more a corrupt form of crony socialism in our midst.
At the top it’s a fetish market, the artificial scarcity of just a few sanctioned names, ready to run a few more generations on the ‘new money’ capitalism is bringing in from all over the world -- 'yes, already rich people spend their money on this stuff, you’re welcome.' They’re set for life even if the government does rewrite the tax laws regarding donations to art museums, don’t bet on it. They control anything left with ‘funding,’ granting agencies behind every bush fielding applications, tossing out the independents, the direct communicators, any art and artist who might generate a popular following.
Bureaucrats probably aren’t bad people, and don’t prefer obscure contemporary art for aesthetic reasons, oh no, more a deep institutional imperative favoring self-perpetuation. ‘Art for everyone’ is just the cover motto for instead being ‘up to date,’ same as perpetually out of reach. Time to turn the tables, as in turn them over, and release art, artists, and everyone else from the yoke of ‘community support,’ and allow the economic system to work. Allow the population the chance at a more accessible, more comparable and understandable, more ownable art being produced right around here -- and see once and for all if art can compete and survive like the rest of us.
Life and death competition from an early age isn’t something we invented, most creatures in nature face a similar situation, but this modern version has been wonderfully productive as compared to caliphates and kingdoms, clans and collectives. Desperation and glory come to the dance arm in arm, and taking dire chances produces the advancement we see expanding geometric as we speak. This crucible of the open market, oddly enough, does not drive art these days, which resembles more a corrupt form of crony socialism in our midst.
At the top it’s a fetish market, the artificial scarcity of just a few sanctioned names, ready to run a few more generations on the ‘new money’ capitalism is bringing in from all over the world -- 'yes, already rich people spend their money on this stuff, you’re welcome.' They’re set for life even if the government does rewrite the tax laws regarding donations to art museums, don’t bet on it. They control anything left with ‘funding,’ granting agencies behind every bush fielding applications, tossing out the independents, the direct communicators, any art and artist who might generate a popular following.
Bureaucrats probably aren’t bad people, and don’t prefer obscure contemporary art for aesthetic reasons, oh no, more a deep institutional imperative favoring self-perpetuation. ‘Art for everyone’ is just the cover motto for instead being ‘up to date,’ same as perpetually out of reach. Time to turn the tables, as in turn them over, and release art, artists, and everyone else from the yoke of ‘community support,’ and allow the economic system to work. Allow the population the chance at a more accessible, more comparable and understandable, more ownable art being produced right around here -- and see once and for all if art can compete and survive like the rest of us.
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