Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Ekwivalencies


Will I ever visit an art museum again and not hear someone suggest to someone else that Art and the Art World are synonymous, or are those days over? Is Contemporary Art now an atmosphere that exists independent of what we think of when we think of space and time? A Strictly Ballroom land mass, a Devil's Island of the mind?

"Again and again the same situation…"

During a recent walk through a large art museum I overheard a fifty-something woman tell her adult daughter that the Art World that administers Art -- that is Art -- is "sick. It's gross. It's just like high school."

Yes, the history of Art is full of cliques, movements and isms -- popular people and invisible people -- but divisions like these are endemic to any gathering, be it in politics or in economics, in churches or in moques.

But what if the Art World is high school, at least as middle-aged people remember high school? Are there equivalencies? Is it worth our while to go down that road?

In the high school that is the Art World, then, would the artists be the jocks?


 Would the curators be the cheerleaders?


And would the critics be the yearbook committee?


As for the gallerists, would they be the teachers?


 And the collectors -- would they be the substitute teachers?

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