through the eyes of others -- art antagonisms

This election shows that it’s not different tribes we belong to, we live in different places in an alternate universe and we’re never going to agree about anything until we line out a playing field in the middle somewhere and agree on some rules. It’s unreasonable blaming art for any of this since art is just an afterthought after all and really not capable of defining the differences we perceive in each other. On the other hand perhaps if we could see today’s art through the eyes of others we’d begin to understand the chaos all around.

We’ll look through a common set of eyes, in this case male, and what you mostly remember from your high school experience are three years on the varsity, starting left guard senior year. There’s a lot about the culture you don’t understand. You don’t know why any of the cartoons in new yorker magazine are funny, and you’re left out by references to past wars or politicians you’re very vague about. You might be an intelligent practical person capable of running a big farm, able to make quick consequential decisions, and be kind and humane toward your family and friends, but you will not be transported by the piece of art that just sold for thirty times the price of all that soil and all the tears, sweat, and triumph of a lifetime on a family farm. It’s probably just going to piss you off. Well you’re just going to have to live with it and ignore it, but if you ever get the chance, you’re going to vote for Trump. It’s a disaster but I don’t blame you.

I don’t agree with your politics but I’m down with your point of view. An article noted that it was interesting how many rich kids wind up being successful as artists, and it isn’t just the trust fund studio or the early sponsorship of the parents’ friends -- an obligatory and empty gesture, they’ll give it to the maid. Their real edge of course is growing up with rich people’s art, the kind that says my offhand gesture is more potent and meaningful than ten years of your gardener’s toil and he’s compensated very nicely. Not everybody likes that kind of art. To make it bald-faced perfectly clear some worthy and productive people find the art presented in media to be patently offensive. Perhaps the cultural progressives thought they just didn’t care or that they wouldn’t notice, but over a hundred million dollars for the ugliest dumbest art possible, to be fair that is its charm, makes people so mad they tend to overlook their own self-interests.

There’s a simple fix to all of this but it’s going to make a lot of rich people wail and gnash their teeth. Float thirty or forty prime Rothko paintings on the market, everyone attempting to unload all at once, and see how many millionaires jump over the hedges to snap them up. At one time the Marlboro Gallery held seven hundred and fifty three of them and that isn’t all there are, who knows? Even with all the status-seeking new money flooding in it’s a good bet this gravy train will soon grow rancid, and once prices start to retreat there’s likely to be a period of free-fall to some more rational consideration of actual value, and who knows?

Maybe we should reconsider our approach to education and not separate out the gifted and privileged to run things and preserve the culture, but that’s a political discussion. When it comes to visual art let all the Warhol fast-food art, to be fair its charm, seek its own level against more organic and locally-sourced, more conscious and accomplished picture making. When the people who support this economy find some form of expression they can relate to maybe it will help to disarm the rage of frustration that pollutes our politics.