Seems somebody sabotaged our truth meter, abused their exalted positions as experts and sold a line of crap so corrupt the whole enterprise is being called into question. It’s getting to the point any person of dubious intent can make up the news, and if enough people believe it might as well call it truth.
Where is the festering source of this herd-like delusion regarding what’s actually going on? It isn’t in the history books, slanted perhaps, but largely accurate when it comes to facts, and it doesn’t come from science, intimately engaged with reality and aware of actual consequences. Could it be art, which has insisted for decades that repetitious signage was worth obscene amounts of money, touting an aesthetic system patently at odds with common sensibilities? It’s more than possible, and the tax code rides shotgun. For all its glamour and prestige, contemporary art is a confidence game carried out in plain sight, a robbery during business hours, and the culture pays the price when no one believes anyone, anymore.
‘Who are you gonna believe’ is the question of the moment, the lying art magazines, the compensated critics, the safe and warm academics, or your own eyes? Unless you happen to be an impeccably sophisticated urbanite high above street level, you can’t do both. Everyday people like pictures, but the art industry doesn’t. Actual inherent worth in a work of art gets in the way of their spiel, confuses their issues, defeats their bluebook assessments. Take a charming little painting from above the mantle to a certified appraiser who might glance out of vague curiosity, then looks in a book. Can’t find the name, signature indistinct, according to them, worthless. You didn’t want to sell it anyway.
In the face of dire conditions can we expect an upgrade in the discernment of a free and self-reliant people, one day soon responding to an art more truly reflective of the interests and aspirations of their region, their generation, and the individual’s place in the world? If it happened the resulting grounding of owning art would ripple out, inform the day, and insist on a personal verification for stuff believed.
Where is the festering source of this herd-like delusion regarding what’s actually going on? It isn’t in the history books, slanted perhaps, but largely accurate when it comes to facts, and it doesn’t come from science, intimately engaged with reality and aware of actual consequences. Could it be art, which has insisted for decades that repetitious signage was worth obscene amounts of money, touting an aesthetic system patently at odds with common sensibilities? It’s more than possible, and the tax code rides shotgun. For all its glamour and prestige, contemporary art is a confidence game carried out in plain sight, a robbery during business hours, and the culture pays the price when no one believes anyone, anymore.
‘Who are you gonna believe’ is the question of the moment, the lying art magazines, the compensated critics, the safe and warm academics, or your own eyes? Unless you happen to be an impeccably sophisticated urbanite high above street level, you can’t do both. Everyday people like pictures, but the art industry doesn’t. Actual inherent worth in a work of art gets in the way of their spiel, confuses their issues, defeats their bluebook assessments. Take a charming little painting from above the mantle to a certified appraiser who might glance out of vague curiosity, then looks in a book. Can’t find the name, signature indistinct, according to them, worthless. You didn’t want to sell it anyway.
In the face of dire conditions can we expect an upgrade in the discernment of a free and self-reliant people, one day soon responding to an art more truly reflective of the interests and aspirations of their region, their generation, and the individual’s place in the world? If it happened the resulting grounding of owning art would ripple out, inform the day, and insist on a personal verification for stuff believed.
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