Seems some legally-trained art observer suggested that the banana wasn’t really art but an unregistered financial instrument. He reasoned, ‘As I saw artwork increasingly dematerialize, the more I realized that what you’re buying literally fits the definition of a security as adopted by the Supreme Court....... it’s even truer to say you’re buying a percentage ownership in the fame.’ Reaction was immediate and overwhelming. It’s like when you say something out loud that everyone knows already but no one else has acknowledged and you know right away it was the wrong thing to say. ‘“I was so drunk when I wrote this paper,” and he went on to explain how very drunk he was, oh please forgive me.
There’s a good reason the simple fact that the art market today is really another form of financial speculation should never be whispered in the same room with lay people. We must protect the sincere and simple faith of the flock is what they tell themselves. Art left long ago. To cite a period in Rothko’s career when he became intensely interested in ‘fuzzy edges’, invoking the grandeur and authority of modern art’s iron-clad liturgy, requires an aesthetic insight the average person will never attain -- this all seems so familiar. A Rothko painting made on a scale that would fit the average home would be a visual sink hole, less interesting than a bird calendar. Some museum in texas holds a series of Pollocks done easel size that nobody wants.
In general the population has become disillusioned about art, unsure of its premises and suspicious of motives, with many finally turning to sports with at least knowable outcomes and a rationale that reaches several levels. They’re not likely to be seduced with rotting bananas or much of anything else about art that attains national media attention. Outrage seems sorta cheap but it’s become the bloody mosh-pit of contemporary art, some peculiar amalgam of identity and ethnicity, edgy politics and above all a casual approach to actualization, any suggestion seems good enough. Have I missed something? The banana is a joke, I get that, and the punch line is when somebody pays a stupid amount for it making the artist just the setup person, it’s an old vaudeville act, ha ha. Still, it just doesn’t have the slightest thing to do with art, except perhaps to demean and humiliate it in the eyes of the world -- history sees you guys, from both directions.
People renounce their faith everyday. They open their eyes for the first time and suddenly see that art condenses and distills their own unspoken disappointments and aspirations, especially when it’s been produced totally unacknowledged and against all odds in some small town where it's imbued with qualities the facile grad-school comets of instant success will never attain. It’s not so difficult for the average citizen to begin to realize that super-bowls recede into the past one after the other, but a work of art owned and lived with never changes, an increasingly potent concept these days. What the artist managed to express and what the owner sees there is between those two, a long-term conversation that may mature and change as years go by. Real art is unlikely to spoil in a week.
There’s a good reason the simple fact that the art market today is really another form of financial speculation should never be whispered in the same room with lay people. We must protect the sincere and simple faith of the flock is what they tell themselves. Art left long ago. To cite a period in Rothko’s career when he became intensely interested in ‘fuzzy edges’, invoking the grandeur and authority of modern art’s iron-clad liturgy, requires an aesthetic insight the average person will never attain -- this all seems so familiar. A Rothko painting made on a scale that would fit the average home would be a visual sink hole, less interesting than a bird calendar. Some museum in texas holds a series of Pollocks done easel size that nobody wants.
In general the population has become disillusioned about art, unsure of its premises and suspicious of motives, with many finally turning to sports with at least knowable outcomes and a rationale that reaches several levels. They’re not likely to be seduced with rotting bananas or much of anything else about art that attains national media attention. Outrage seems sorta cheap but it’s become the bloody mosh-pit of contemporary art, some peculiar amalgam of identity and ethnicity, edgy politics and above all a casual approach to actualization, any suggestion seems good enough. Have I missed something? The banana is a joke, I get that, and the punch line is when somebody pays a stupid amount for it making the artist just the setup person, it’s an old vaudeville act, ha ha. Still, it just doesn’t have the slightest thing to do with art, except perhaps to demean and humiliate it in the eyes of the world -- history sees you guys, from both directions.
People renounce their faith everyday. They open their eyes for the first time and suddenly see that art condenses and distills their own unspoken disappointments and aspirations, especially when it’s been produced totally unacknowledged and against all odds in some small town where it's imbued with qualities the facile grad-school comets of instant success will never attain. It’s not so difficult for the average citizen to begin to realize that super-bowls recede into the past one after the other, but a work of art owned and lived with never changes, an increasingly potent concept these days. What the artist managed to express and what the owner sees there is between those two, a long-term conversation that may mature and change as years go by. Real art is unlikely to spoil in a week.
No comments:
Post a Comment