Just back from two day online discussion with a couple of heavyweights, big guys in the industry, a museum administrator and another guy who presumes to greatness, crusher credentials I’m sure, and little me with nothing more than a profile portrait I painted of myself, so unfair. Don’t think they looked, didn’t have to, they knew way more than me already.
One guy quotes Wynton Marsalis referencing Tim Duncan and comparing him to someone shooting hoops in a driveway, think he meant me. The other guy was downright abusive. They produced an avalanche of indignation, paragraphs and pages, explaining to me how seriously inadequate my life had been, how naive have been my assumptions about art and the world, and what a small town amateur nobody I really was. Three or four lines from me and they were off again, justifying themselves to me as though I was somebody. It was weird.
Aggressively defensive about their profession and their personal professionalism, casting hardcore sneers and haughty pouts, couldn’t tell if they agreed with each other on anything, but they were ganging up on me. At this point I’m not entirely sure I’m the insecure one. I appreciated the opportunity really. I’m not even on the ground floor of the art building, that’s me on the park bench across the street. The doorman has never let me in. These guys were shouting down from the penthouse, so they kept saying, and I was glad to return serve, told them about my life and art in my hometown, what I thought of their tax sucking parasitic dead-weight on the cultural expression of regular folks, both of them so sophisticated and beholden to the rich and all. It was fun.
After about fifteen sweaty rounds they decide they’ve finished me off, dusting their palms they go off arms over each others shoulders, satisfied they’ve demolished and demoralized me, sent me whimpering back to my day job. They’re on the same side as Damien Hirst who has reduced the very essence of visual art down to polka dots on pieces of plywood, his assistants paint the dots, ‘no two alike,’ attached to a great big price tag, an enormous price tag. These guys get that. I’ll side with Vincent, an actual artist -- he didn’t like them as much as they didn’t like him, and I’ll take those odds, too.
One guy quotes Wynton Marsalis referencing Tim Duncan and comparing him to someone shooting hoops in a driveway, think he meant me. The other guy was downright abusive. They produced an avalanche of indignation, paragraphs and pages, explaining to me how seriously inadequate my life had been, how naive have been my assumptions about art and the world, and what a small town amateur nobody I really was. Three or four lines from me and they were off again, justifying themselves to me as though I was somebody. It was weird.
Aggressively defensive about their profession and their personal professionalism, casting hardcore sneers and haughty pouts, couldn’t tell if they agreed with each other on anything, but they were ganging up on me. At this point I’m not entirely sure I’m the insecure one. I appreciated the opportunity really. I’m not even on the ground floor of the art building, that’s me on the park bench across the street. The doorman has never let me in. These guys were shouting down from the penthouse, so they kept saying, and I was glad to return serve, told them about my life and art in my hometown, what I thought of their tax sucking parasitic dead-weight on the cultural expression of regular folks, both of them so sophisticated and beholden to the rich and all. It was fun.
After about fifteen sweaty rounds they decide they’ve finished me off, dusting their palms they go off arms over each others shoulders, satisfied they’ve demolished and demoralized me, sent me whimpering back to my day job. They’re on the same side as Damien Hirst who has reduced the very essence of visual art down to polka dots on pieces of plywood, his assistants paint the dots, ‘no two alike,’ attached to a great big price tag, an enormous price tag. These guys get that. I’ll side with Vincent, an actual artist -- he didn’t like them as much as they didn’t like him, and I’ll take those odds, too.
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