Art stopped having a social meaning after the death of Basquiat, whatever happened since the day after his dead to our days is what we all know as inertia.
Of course the consequences of the early inertia where provided of equal quality as the ones previous to Basquiat, but it is not quality what counts here since we are taking about social meaning not quality; i mean social meaning as "the importance of being an artist".
Designers are excluded of this discrimination, designers create functional objects and they profit more or less fast or faster that the lonely soul who's trying to paint or sculpt or compose a useless masterpiece. And even if we do momentarily profit, there's no much more social meaning in it than going to the park to feed the pigeons.
Since success became more and more an accidental event than a reward for your merits
or skills also the quality of the artworks and music declined to the lowest levels and also the disappearance and forgetfulness of famous artists during or since early 90s; when the last famous visual artist was Damien Hirst.
Or do you dare to remember any other famous artist name this days?
Don't even try because there's no any left. Curators and gallerists were and maybe they are trying to be famous or celebrants of themselves promoting artists on line but for some reason the name of the curator or the gallerist/art dealer will shine first. We also have a fest of art consumers, ex artists, connoisseurs, collectors or wannabes that please themselves in "not getting it". Not getting it is a safe position. This very peculiar reaction to art of "not getting it" today is mainly an expression of denial to protect their senses from a mental/cultural collapse. ( The Freudian "fantasy of the end of the world"). Because even the charming decadent aesthetics of the post modernism in the early and middle 90s reflected this "if"; while on one hand were a signal of the apocalypse of art as social phenomenon it was also a loose link enjoyable by the snobs and the avantgardists. On the other hand was a hybrid aesthetic itself. also enjoyable by Sunday museums and gallery visitors.
Today's standards put equal values either on the enjoyable "don't get it" as well as the "smile of understanding" both vacuous fields of celebration of the death of art. The Music revolution last scream and legacy is definitely most of the soundworks or musics produced by the British Record labels 4AD and em:t ; but of course this besides being mainly a matter of opinion, has not value as a treasure or cultural relic; unless until now; with the exception of a few crazy souls that are trying to make it a treasure at paying over 300 dollars in ebay for certain em:t cds.
Time will tell. . .
Damien Olsen
August 4, 2010
Brooklyn, NY, USA
http://damienolsenelectronica.com/
http://www.redbubble.com/people/Olsen
http://damienolsenartindustries.blogspot.com/
Copied and reproduced here from a post published August 4, 2010 on Damien Olsen's blog: http://damienolsenartindustries.blogspot.com/ with the express permission of the artist. His original post was published before "The Prostitution of Art" call and online blog.
The photograph shows a group of early 2000s sculptures sleeping in the closet, or waiting patiently to get naked under the red lights.
ReplyDeleteart is dead, vive la'art!