The Fucking Art World

   Every year the art world pisses me off a little more, as it chips away in any interest outside of what I create. I'm not speaking of the trend of "social" or "political" art which is nothing more than propaganda for the insipid masses, who look for ways to be offended. I'm speaking of mainstream art. The art you see in galleries and museums. That safe, repetitive, perfected art, that needs no explanation nor requires an ounce of brain activity. Just a smile, and a selfie in front of it.

  You will have to forgive my fragmented writing style because of my frustration level...

  There is a phrase that has stuck in my head for the last 15 years. "Too much perfection ruins art". There isn't a week that goes by without me thinking about that phrase. It doesn't mean that all art that comes close to perfection is bad, it means that there is now too much perceived perfection in the art world. Perfect colors, perfect composition, perfect clarity, perfect brush strokes, etc. Oh, and perfect artist statements. This method along with whatever's hot at the auction houses has transformed many a contemporary artist into a sellout, and along with them goes the masses who believe that because something sells for tens of millions of dollars, it's good. There are so many examples I could give, I could write a book, a series of books.

  While good art and bad art is subjective, the point of most of this post is the copycats, and art that's more decor or merchandise. Art use to be challenging, for the artist, and to the viewer. Now it has to be familiar, friendly, expected, and homogenized. Nobody wants to take the time out to think about a painting. Especially the younger generations. And that's where mannerism comes in, or more plainly put, copying. 

  Artists use to get greatly offended when someone looking at their art said "it reminds mind of Picasso" or "looks like a Basquiat", even though the uneducated viewer thought they were paying a compliment. Today it's completely the opposite, and some see it as a boost to their "brand". Ok, when the fuck did an artist become a brand!? To me at least, that's an insult. Do you become a brand when your painting becomes socks, a shower curtain, or an umbrella? Or has social media turned artist into tiny corporations. The thought of that constipates me.

  I often wonder what would the dead great artists think of all this mess? What would Modigliani and Van Gogh say about todays art world. Two artists who sold one or two paintings when they were alive. Now their artwork is on every perceivable piece of merchandise out there, cheapening what is great art. Is this what todays artists want? To have their merch sold at Target, Amazon, and in gift shops. This clusterfuck has taken what was new, and challenging art in its time, and turned it into a soft warm puppy sleeping at your feet, instead of wakening you, by smacking you across the face. Psst, Basquiat's sisters, are you listening to this?

  On the other spectrum to this kind of art is, "outsider art" or "folk art". I never liked either of those names, and found them insulting, a tongue in cheek way of saying that you're not good enough to play with the big boys. And when I've asked many a people to give me an accurate definition of the terms, most could not, while some, mostly gallery workers became uncomfortable. One actually said that " it's art not to be taken seriously". Gee, how mature and charming. A lot of what I see in what they call Outsider Art is primitive or child like, styles that apparently you can only get away with if you're already famous. And those are terms that even the most simple minded art viewer understands, and most will avoid those exhibitions like the plague, all because of being categorized.

  The art world is in serious trouble as far as the art is concerned, not the money, especially when auction houses bid up to the chandelier for tens, and now hundreds of millions of dollars for a single painting. Not when non-blue chip artists are seeking notoriety by copying, and downright stealing the work of others, trying to hitch their wagon to someone else's star. All you have to do you look to see when the last large art movement was, and what it was. Believe it or not it was street art, and then out of the woodwork came all these "street artists" who never did any art on the streets, trying to steal the glory away from those who did. So how does all this get fixed ?

 First the galleries have to go back to showing the avant-garde. The true avant-garde, and not that crap they've been peddling for 15 years now. But the problem is that they have abused the description, the same way developers have with the word "luxury". If everything today is luxury, the word loses all meaning, the same goes for avant-garde. In the 20th century the galleries use to challenge and educate the art world, then the museums would learn and discover, then in-between that the collectors began collecting. But with todays art youth, or those under the age of 45, the art gallery is the enemy, an always wealthy enemy. So they look to leapfrog the gallery system and land right into the museums or even better yet, the auction houses.

  In conclusion someone took a blender to the art world, and it's now something that tastes horrible and poisons. As for me I'll stay a recluse.