The BEST article I’ve ever read about what art is good for. Slowly, I feel myself rising from the pit of despair I’d sunk into the past couple of years.
http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/value_added/
“Art is the only place left that still allows a relatively autonomous, wild and profound discussion on just about anything that matters to anyone and everyone; art is just as pointless, useless and necessary as any other activity in the world; while there has arguably never been a truly adequate depiction of art in film or on television, no good film or television programme could have been conceived without lessons learnt from art; whether justified or not, contemporary art has symbolic power in Western culture, and this power gives art context, responsibility and agency; art can transform images, things and situations into more than they would be if art didn’t exist; art is the sibling of language, and sometimes they have good fights; art embraces the absurd, irrational and irreverent; art people often abandon conservative notions of family; art has a wayward conscience in an unconscionable world; there are gender issues and all kinds of racial and sexual discrimination in art, but at least they are being discussed as problems; art is preferable to religion because it’s not about finding a ‘one size fits all’ resolution; some experiences of art can be better than the best love affairs; history shows that art is what remains; art is an alternative value system; art is in everything people do, so someone needs to address that; there are hierarchies within art, but they are volcanically volatile – bursts of energy can come from nowhere and change the landscape overnight; the idea of art is nimble enough to defy definition; art loves problems, misfits, hermits and the reckless; art challenges death and despair; art may be full of contradictions, but at its core lies the idea of championing freedom.”
“Artists and curators work together in increasingly business-like ways: by commission and assignment, prompted by invitations to write up proposals and produce work responding to a certain exhibition theme, venue, sizes of art-fair booths, budgets, deadlines and the local context. Artists, curators and gallerists, independent institutions, biennial and art fair founders, critics, art publishers and conference organizers form a kind of supply and demand relationship that gives rise to a hierarchy. In other words, art has fallen victim to the paradigms and power structures of an industry. The art world has evolved in its ability to function within the values of a capitalist society, and the ‘professionalization’ and industrialization of art and artists have driven both to become symbolic and performative. It is paradoxical that as more institutions surface within the art industry, increasing numbers of artists share a desire to create personalized systems that can be logistically, artistically and even theoretically autonomous. In China, more and more artists are avoiding conventional gallery structures by curating their own exhibitions, publicizing their work online and even writing their own art criticism.”
Y: i don’t get why william leavitt is good
sets and randomly picked out lines from plays and bad paintings
he’s one of baldessari’s favorites though
J: really? weird yah i dont get the art world
ugh why did i hv so much caffeine
Y: i think basically everyone knows as much as freshman art students
it’s just positions of power
J: hahahaha i dunno freshman are pretty dumb
they are pretty horrible
Y: ok maybe sophomores then
freshman year of art school i just pretty much focused on stealing groceries and clothes
