"The problem is no longer that artworks will end up as commodities, but that they will start out as such. Expanded scale and intensified pace have cast over the art arena a veneer of glamor that further imbalances it all."
-Thomas McEvilley, Art & Discontent: Theory at the Millennium
"Most of what the...art world has to offer is glamour. Glamour, like the art world itself, is a highly fickle and commercially driven enterprise that contributes to...the 'humdrum.' It appears and disappears."
-Robert Morgan
Image credit: picture of Pulse Miami 2008 ripped from
e-flux website
3 comments:
I wrote my Imperial Clothng two years ago, before people started admitting something is wrong, and the deperession came, Something I said was inevitable. And that the art world has supported this very system of avarice, it patrons ARE those people, andn caters to them.
Creative art and fashion can never mix, Now, fashion week is filled with fine art galleries and events. Because they are not art. Entertainment is of the lowest common denominator, creative art the highest. Fashion being the amusement and validation of the lifestyles of the rich, which art has now become, and truly lowly aspirations. It is the absurdist entertainments of the satus quo, supporting the desires and power structure of the rich. The patrons and controlling force of Fine Art Academies.
Creative art and entertainment are yang and yin, both are needed, but now there is only yin. It has taken over the virile masculine side of humanity, the yang, and corrupted it, made it effeminate, sterile, and out of balance. And so easy to control.
For that is what art is now, a power Salon of a hundred years ago, torn down by Cezanne, Gauguin, van Gogh, and Seurat. The Moderns came in their wake to over turn catering to the rich, and sought truth first, foremost, and always. Til it too became corrupted, as is inevitable.
And now, it must be so again. Art never comes from the inside, those blinded by their own personal desires, and seeking career and lifestyle. Not Truth. The Sophists and Pharisees of Academia have taken hold again, it is time for their demise. At all costs, for Humanity is all that matters, and has been neglected, in the self worhip of Meism. The Age of Excess is over. It is time to get to work.
Art Collegia Delenda Est
Fine art acadamies must be destroyed
Donald:
As you know, in broad stroke, I share your perspective, though, as you also know, I see a lot of good art being made at present. In other words, the accepted art market model is problematic, but not all of contemporary art is. In fact, much of it is excellent!
Initially, I read your proclamation that all "fine art academies must be destroyed" as hyperbole. Then I recalled reading Joe Fig's interview with Matthew Ritchie in Fig's Vasari-like Inside the Painter's Studio. Asked about advice for artists in art graduate school, Ritchie responds:
"Well, one, I think grad schools should be abolished. I mean, it's just a scam. It's the professionalization of something that is not a profession. [...] So it just seems wrong to me. If a university is going to ask young people to pay $50-60,000 to learn a skill set, they, and we, need to collectively establish it as a real critical discipline. But most universities think their art departments are a cash cow with no real discipline to impart."
Although I had a memorable, good graduate school experience, I certainly didn't learn much. I was introduced to the art market and I forged a number of good friendships, but learning...that was all done before and after, and on my own.
Exactly. Getting a MFA will only teach you bad habbits, and how to kowtow. One must be completely independant, yet of the whole. Art schools divide, they look for market share, they want a distinct style, an autograph, not art.
They must be abolished, as the waste they are, A two applied art degree is grat, learn a true skill, adn have two years of drawing, color and form theory, and history. Thats it. They rest can be learned after this on ones own, it is but an introduction. No one coming out of any school is ready for the real world, it is but preperation, yet the art industry pumps up children as developed artists. BS. It is about developing that market itself through the huge output of lemmings, of those who will eventually get jobs at daddies office, and have the monies to buy it. And make it seem cool, fashionable, chic. The enemies of creative art.
One must develop balance on ones own, become a man first. One must experience life before one can comment about it, through words, sounds or visual languages. Art academies are the enemy of creative art, always have been. We are at the time of Cezanne, it is time to rebel. And see the Pharisees and Sophists for who they are, money grubbing and careerist charlatans.
And so
Fine Art Academies must be destroyed
art collegia delenda est
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