Tom Wolfe wrote a very short but excellent book called, "The Painted Word". In it he puts forward an explanation of how we got to the place we find ourselves in today with not just the art world, but with our entire society and its inability to understand what art and aesthetics at large should and could be. Somehow, we wandered away from the original intent of art: to uplift and enhance our lives.
When the fur-clad artists of the Neanderthal and then the Cro Magnon cultures in Europe painted animals on cave walls, using red and yellow ochre, and charcoal black pigments mixed with animal fat, they weren't doing it to amuse themselves. Even to the casual observer it's clear that they did it to honor Nature and the animals on which their very existence depended. The paintings in the caves at Lascaux have grace, beauty and a sense of reverence. And, there is another cave art site in eastern Spain that was only discovered in 2013 due to its entrance having been hidden under a rock slide. It has been kept secret to protect it from vandals, asshats who have already disfigured other cave art.
The grace and stunning graphic beauty of these ancient works prompted on critic to wonder if the best art has already happened......30,000 years ago. Some actually date back 45,000 years or more.
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| Done by the light of an oil lamp, by artists wearing animal skins..... |
So, along comes 'art moderne'--read, the greedy mongers who run the ultra-elite New York art world--and they decide that art is certainly not for the common folk, but that it should be elite and inaccessible to all but a few cognoscenti....who just happen to have exotic affluence sufficient to buy what they are told will prove to be good investments, never mind how it performs any role as 'fine' art. And, what has devolved out of this departure is simply a cultural tragedy.
Beauty is passé, along with all the qualities that made art something that could be honestly referred to as, 'fine'. It would no longer be a part of how we learn to see the world. In fact, it would depart from earlier norms in such a way that it has become almost sinister, dark and threatening. Now these aesthetic bullies and arrogant idiots would have us believe that 'ugly is beautiful' and art that is actually accessible is only for the 'little people' who simply aren't equipped to understand, much less to buy and collect, elite art.
Here is a painting, title "Equals Pi" by Jean Michael Basquiat. He was a street artist in NYC who was picked-up by a major NY gallery and turned into an overnight phenom....which is exactly what the big power-house galleries do for a living. They don't merely sell art; they create a demand for it by putting it on an esoteric pedestal. If you have to ask what it is about or what it means, you are one of the peasants who is not supposed to know, destined to remain ignorant and very un-cool forever. Poor you, eh.
This painting sold for a reported 110 MILLION bucks at auction. That is the highest amount ever paid for an artwork by an American artist. And, absolute proof that the art world is lost and wandering in the deep forest of confusion over what is 'real'.
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| Ah, such delicacy and grace...so sophisticated that we ordinary people will never understand what we're missing. |
Basquiat was so 'cool' that he killed himself with a drug overdose at age 27. If I had painted this abomination, and then was praised profusely for creating a 'masterpiece', I would probably be reaching for the Luger at that point too.
In a society where such confusion even extends to having people believe that Beauty is plebian and art that regular people can relate to is soporific junk art....it's an indication that a whole lot more is wrong. When people are no longer even able to trust their instincts and react to something honestly and with feeling, then that society is on its way to also pedaling ideas such as, 'Facts are merely opinions'. They don't really matter. Science is full of lies and traps for the unwary. If the government tells you that a vaccine is 'safe and effective', run from the room screaming. If medical experts tell you to put on a mask....because THEY WORK. Scream at them, assault them, and refuse to do it. Just because it could save lives...what the fuck does that matter?
The takeaway is this: we're living in a time when confusion is rampant. People no longer trust their own instincts about....well, damn-near ANY-FUCKING-THING. The latest indication of how far out all of this has become is that people are having to be warned to not use a veterinary de-worming medicine for horses, Ivermectin....because it could kill you. Of course, it would be way too easy to just go and get a vaccination. No way, I'm going to let the government put nano-bots in my bloodstream.
Really? If I didn't know better, I would say we really are totally and utterly fucked. Oh, wait, I do know better...and we're still headed for the Twilight of the Gods.
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