I think the problem lies in museums, galleries, and universities. I don't blame the art any more than I blame Christ and his disciples for the Crusades and the Catholic Church.
I think the idea of art being made dangerously commodified and materialistic to the point where it oppresses the artistic process is a defeatist position. That this process is caused by institutionalized bodies of history and art appreciation and curation and that it essentially and necessarily destroys art I think is a defeatist position and I refuse to take it.
I don't want to see Duchamp done away with any more than I'd like to see Michelangelo done away with. I get my value from them differently than do the institutions who would make celebrities out of the artist and canonize their work. I value appropriation in many respects, and this is one of them. How can we steal from the "great" works of art if they weren't around being worshiped by "patrons of the arts"?
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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön
Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot
Last edited by Baraka_Guru; 05-22-2010 at 03:00 PM..
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