This time, there was an unusually high amount of what Etienne Gilson would call "arts of the beautiful," as opposed to arts that serve didactic or politicized ends. Several shows contained works that passed the living room test, that is, pieces one would actually want hanging in one's living room. On previous walks, canvasses that a person with reasonably sized walls might actually consider purchasing amounted to maybe twenty percent of what was on offer. As of May 2009, that percentage seems to have jumped to nearly half.The whole article is Another Day In Chelsea.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Change In The Culture War
Encouraging news from the world of modern art? Who would have thought? Matthew Milliner over at First Things writes:
If I want an intellectual statement, I will read a book, a magazine, or a blog. I do not go for intellectual statements in art. I do not like being preached at, especially when the preaching is coming from an artist with pretensions of intellectual depth.
ReplyDeleteA cousin is married to someone who has made a good living in the arts- not an easy thing to do. While there may be some intellectual statement behind those works of art that help support my cousin, they are at least pleasing to the eye.
When the endowments are devastated by the economic plague, the artiste must shift for himself. He looks for patrons, and failing that, must produce what others will buy. Others who have no agenda beyond, perhaps, a delight in that which is beautiful. When you are staring at the bottom of your last (empty) can of Campbell's soup, the concept of "selling out" acquires an optional character heretofore unrecognized. Thus we can learn to turn pop art into pop tarts.
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