Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Art is a Piece of Cake

ART IS A PIECE OF CAKE
What do you call artists who are stuck in the paleolithic use of unrefined tools- paint, brushes, organic materials? Are they proto-creators- neo-anderthals- brush age creatures? And what is the nature of their symbolisms? Ritual- taboo- spiritual guidance? Superstitious spirit world contact? Worship? Primitive traditions which are genetic and coded like pacer genes in the development of conditions which maintain base human alignment with a disease of the mind which limits the attainment of sophistication?
The impressarios of the art world exist in a melieu where the cult of celebrity validates and provides meaning to an object in an advanced position to whatever may exist by divine right. The expectation of discovery is a more powerful aphrodisiac than, for example, the content of a book which has perhps lost it's cover and needs to be read page by page. This is the pitfall of success, if success can be defined as the level of exposure required to launch the artists iconography and hence career path into public knowledge. The cult of celebrity creates meaning in such an inductive way- meaning is a byproduct of visibility. The hunger game for this kind of food is easily created- there is no need to refine the appetite beyond the basic need to consume. Smoke, mirrors, technology, magic, phantageon.
The problem with the location of greatness in the art world is that it needs to construct a continuum in which one can place a Damien Hirst, say, at one end. There is the need to relegate unwanted aspects of creative production to the soup kitchen of the soul; to adopt others in a way that will make the combination of elements manageable, and easily digestible. Consumption is the game, and hunger is managed in the same way that marketing creates new cravings. Art in the post-meltdown era- the soup kitchen of the soul.