Instead of awakening us to new possibilities, popular art tranquilizes us; it is our aesthetic valium. Think of the examples I have cited: no matter how skillfully and shrewdly constructed, popular art always offers what we already know, or less. Popular art dumbs us down.
from “Dumbing Down Art in America” by David Swanger. (Access it on JSTOR). I read this article three times today. Swanger articulates everything I have thought and debated through my journey into Arts Administration. His argument is powerful. I wish I wrote this article!
The things that cannot be measured in a monetary value get cut because they don’t fit into an accounting form.
My accounting professor on the lack of financial commitment to the arts
The connoisseur of Camp has found more ingenious pleasures. Not in Latin poetry and rare wines and velvet jackets, but in the coarsest, commonest pleasures, in the arts of the masses. Mere use does not defile the objects of his pleasure, since he learns to possess them in a rare way. Camp — Dandyism in the age of mass culture — makes no distinction between the unique object and the mass-produced object. Camp taste transcends the nausea of the replica.
Susan Sontag from Notes on “Camp”
Wallace & Gromit: A Grand Day Out (1989)
Everybody knows the moon is made of cheese… —Wallace
Validation is not straightforward. If you are pursuing a career in accountancy, you are confronted with a series of hurdles; clear them all, and you have arrived. For artists, life is much more complicated. In a social setting where the official rule is rule-breaking, the artist who crawls under the first hurdle, knocks over the second and does a strange scissor kick over the third may ultimately win the greatest recognition. Almost by definition, a competent artist is an insignificant one.
Sarah Thornton for The Economist, How to Make Art History. I encourage all of my artist friends to read this article!
School is back in session today where I resume my 12 hour days of full-time job + class after work + homework all night. The more education, the merrier. One of these days, I’ll stop being a student. At least it isn’t as bad as being Steven Shorter.
The liberal idea that, given enough education, these millions will grow into self-aware, creative human beings is nothing more than an exploded myth. It can never happen.Clip from Peter Watkins’ Privilege.
