#WANTED MARCEL DUCHAMP

[scopophilic1997]

scopOphilic_micromessaging_1197 - scopOphilic1997 presents a new micro-messaging series: small, subtle, and often unintentional messages we send and receive verbally and non-verbally. (2013)

[commiegoth]

It's so crazy to me just how many people will straight up say they hate Duchamp's Fountain like not even just "degenerate art" fascists like every time it comes up everyone, even left leaning art history fans are like "I hate this toilet but it's so funny how mad it makes people" like???

☝️ This is the guy you hate so much???

[gregdotorg]

The Artnet caption on this image from the story of Barbara Visser's documentary about questions of authorship of Duchamp's Fountain is perfect.

[angrycatlovesfandoms]

In filosophy class right now, might throw myself out of a window.

[morlock-holmes]

So, people explaining that AI isn't "real art" bother me, not so much because of the answer they reach but because most of the people saying it isn't seem to romanticize not just commercial art production, but also bizarrely to romanticize AI as well, in ways that bother me for subtle reasons I want to try to articulate.

So, first of all, I personally don't think fine art will be changed much by AI.

"What if the artist isn't directly producing the art but instead letting some process create it?"

Convergence by Jackson Pollock, 1952

"What if the so called "artist" is merely rearranging and recontextualizing something that already exists?"

"What if the artist outsources a tremendous amount of work?"

Cambell's Soup Can, Andy Warhol, 1968

The fine art world already confronted these questions and answered between 1912 and, what, 1980 at the latest maybe?

My point here is not to assert the artistic worth of these paintings but to assert their undeniable importance to 20th century art history.

Nobody paying thousands of dollars for a traditional painting on canvas is going to buy an AI version because it's cheaper; such people are already paying a premium for artistic technique and cultivated human talent.

Or, alternatively, I have absolutely no doubt that people would pay a lot for an AI project with, I don't know, Banksy's name on it, even if it was made with freely available, open source tools, because in other cases people are paying for, essentially, a name.

The fine art community already confronted the questions raised by AI art and we're already on the other side of that confrontation. Statistically, the large battles being waged over these issues already finished before you were born.

The actually (potentially) endangered part of the art world is the commercial art world.

Not fine art, but art produced as part of an essentially commercial process in large part under the direction of other people. Fan Art, scripts for films, stock footage, key art used for commercial campaigns, pulp fiction cover illustrations, etc.

And, first of all, the reason that you can be so romantically attached to low-brow, heavily commercial art in the way that you are without feeling utterly absurd about it is Marcel Duchamp's Fountain and the works of Andy Warhol, so maybe have a bit more respect for them and their place in history if you are going to romanticize commercial art production.

Second, because it is those things that are threatened, defenses of human art against AI tend to have this kind of implicit view that the things which characterize commercial pop art are the most important characteristics of art. There is something about this that kind of bothers me for reasons I have trouble bringing up.

Okay, like, one I just watched a YouTube video where the creator said, more or less, "Can you imagine a world where people are so alienated from the production of art that instead of learning to produce it themselves, they type 'woman painting a picture' into a box on a computer and something just pops out?"

The video background was stock footage of a woman painting.

You have this really obnoxious trend of people who make monetized YouTube videos out of other people's copyrighted clips (Claiming "Fair use") talking about how awful it is for AI to "steal" other people's works, and people who fill their videos with stock footage and library tracks talking about how crazy it is that anybody would want to outsource this stuff instead of learning to do it themselves.

But also, beneath that, there is a kind of picture of "What's important about art" that is being built purely out of commercial concerns but masquerading as belief in something higher, and that really bugs me. Stock footage is elevated to the highest of human endeavors purely because it is commercially threatened by AI production.

[eowynstwin]

Generally, I feel like a lot of AI discussion gets down into weeds that obfuscate the foundation of the issue—data storage, environmental impact, copyright law. I couldn’t hypothesize why other than to (perhaps snobbishly) imagine that very few people on either “side” of the issue have a formal art education, because quite frankly two questions matter the most to me, as a trained artist:

1) Is the thing the computer spat out actually, ontologically a piece of art?

2) If yes, who is the actual artist that can claim provenance of that work?

Something you learn toward the end of your BFA, after your fundamental design courses and studio classes, when you’re sitting around with your fellow students in discussion with your professor, is that a creative work’s value as an artistic piece relies on the artist’s intent. A piece of art is a piece of art because the artist who made it intended for it to be a piece of art.

Of course there is PLENTY of philosophical debate to be had regarding a piece’s artistic value, given that once it is determined to be a piece of art it is then subject to critique, but that debate has been ongoing since Marcel Duchamp plopped a urinal onto a plinth and called it art all the way back in 1917.

That debate will not stop until the heat death of the sun.

(Side note: a key talking point for the alt/far-right, when it comes to art, is to claim that the Modernism and its corollary movements are not true art in comparison to the breadth of art history that ended roughly with late Victorian academic practice. Do not give their arguments credence by repeating them.)

Intent is what matters. That’s generally been the foundation of artistic critique for approaching a century. Not necessarily a stable foundation, but whatever.

An analogy:

A professor spends a semester instructing his students how to draw or paint in some classical “style”—let’s say, just for giggles, the Pre-Raphaelite.

He demonstrates specific techniques with specific media and provides specific reference material to his students so they can practice what he has taught them. Throughout the semester he corrects his students’ mistakes and helps them to develop strategies they can use to reproduce the hallmark traits of the Pre-Raphaelite movement.

At the end of the semester, all of his students can reliably create work that looks if not identical to work by artists such as Millais, Rossetti, or Waterhouse, then certainly remarkably similar to them.

Who is the artist of this similar work?

The obvious answer, the CORRECT answer, is his students. Just because the professor trained them to paint in this style does not mean their work becomes his, or, for that matter, any of the artists I mentioned.

His students put brush to canvas and moved pigment around to make a picture. The work is their provenance. They intended to create art that looked Pre-Raphaelite, and then they made it.

I think the application of this analogy to the issue of AI art is obvious, but for clear argument’s sake:

AI is not sentient. AI is not sapient. AI is an extremely well-programmed randomizer not unlike the fantasy name generators nerds use to name their DnD characters (all my love to those nerds).

It associates pixel and hue arrangements with words and phrases and generates images based on those associations. AI has no independent thought. It’s a computer program. It does what you tell it to and has no feelings or opinions of its own.

It cannot have intent.

The only thing that can be successfully argued about an image created by an AI program is that that program did, in fact, create it. Its programming functioned as designed. (No, by the way, this does not mean its programmers are artists either.)

Meanwhile, the tech bro typing “big tittied anime girl” into the prompt line has PLENTY of what you might call intent. He wants to see big tittied anime girls, and he wants to see them in any variety of style he can think of. All he has to do is add “Eiichiro Oda” to his prompt and boom, he has as many big-tittied anime girls with the combined proportions of a Hooter’s waitress and a Jabiru stork as his heart desires.

But he didn’t make the image. The AI did. He may have had an idea of what he wanted the image to look like, but he could as easily have navigated to Google images and typed in the same prompt to pull up the same result.

Here we come to the thrust of my argument: telling a program to generate an image makes you no more the artist of that image than it makes the professor the artist of his students’ work. Being involved in the creation of an image simply by asking for it to be made does not make you its creator.

Telling something, or someone, to create a piece of art does not assign that art’s provenance to you.

So, to answer the questions I posed at the beginning:

2) The AI is the provenance of the image, but

1) No, it is not art, because the AI had no personal intention to create it.

Whether or not AI can be used to create art at all is a different argument, which boils down to: eh, maybe. In my view, AI can create material which an artist can use to go on to make a piece of art. But that requires further intent to be added within that use.

Which tech bros just aren’t adding.

[fashionbooksmilano]

Rrose is a Rrose is a Rrose

Gender Performance in Photography 

Jennifer Blessing

with contributions by Judith Halberstam, Lyle Ashton Harris, Nancy Spector, Carole-Anne Tyler, Sarah Wilson

Guggenheim Museum Publ., New York 1997, 224 pages, softcover, 27,30x33,65cm, ISBN 0-89207-185-0

euro 120,00

email if you want to buy booksinprogressmilano@yahoo.it

Exhibition New York January 17- April 27, 1997

This important volume, whose title combines Gertrude Stein’s famous motto, “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose,” with the name of Marcel Duchamp’s feminine alter ego, Rrose Selavy, features portraits, self-portraits and photomontages in which the gender of the subject is highlighted through performance for the camera or through technical manipulation of the image. In many of the works, photography’s strong aura of realism and objectivity promotes a fantasy of total gender transformation. In other pieces, the photographic representation articulates an incongruity between the posing body and its assumed costume. Features work by Cecil Beaton, Brassai, Claude Cahun, Marcel Duchamp, Hannah Hàch, Man Ray, Janine Antoni, Matthew Barney, Nan Goldin, Lyle Ashton Harris, Robert Mapplethorpe, Annette Messager, Yasumasa Morimura, Catherine Opie, Lucas Samaras, Cindy Sherman, Inez van Lamsweerde and Andy Warhol.

02/05/24

[mosertone]

" ... I asked Duchamp whether he had anything to say about the extensive linking of art with technology, and the attempts to make him a progenitor of the tendency. ‘They have to get somebody as a progenitor so as not to look as though they invent it all by themselves. Makes a better package. But technology: art will be sunk or drowned by technology. Look, I’ll show you an example.’ Duchamp then plugged in a framed box in which electric heat acts on the liquid and crystals within, making them surge up in a sea-green orgy of movement. ‘This is a work by Paul Matisse, Matisse’s grandson, who does not regard himself as an artist. In fact, he intends to manufacture this, and you’ll probably see it in every motel in the country. It could be seen as an artistic conception I suppose.’ ‘Technology will surely drown us. The individual is disappearing rapidly. We’ll eventually be nothing but numbered ants. The group thing grows. You can already feel the tendency in the arts today. Speed, money, interest. A hundred years ago there were few artists, few dealers and few collectors. Art was a world by itself. Now it is completely exoteric—not my cup of tea. There is something wonderful about the secret society that is lost. ‘To get back to what you asked me about the ready-mades. You can’t choose with your taste. Taste is the great enemy. The difficulty I had was to choose. Now my Bottle Dryer is in the books and some regard it as a beautiful sculpture, but not all ready-mades were the same. Once, many years ago, I was dining with some artists at the old Hotel des Artistes here in New York and there was a huge old-fashioned painting behind us—a battle scene, I think. So I jumped up and signed it. You see, that was a ready-made which had everything except taste. And no system. I didn’t want to be called an artist, you know. I wanted to use my possibility to be an individual, and I suppose I have, no?’ We then spoke a little while about Duchamp’s renown, and he pointed out that he had never been particularly cherished by the French. ‘You can’t be a prophet in your own country. I certainly am not.’ Are you better appreciated here, and why did you settle here? ‘The melting pot idea, you know. And the lack of difference between classes. It interested me then. The French Revolution was more evident here in those days. It was good for an artist. Of course, it’s a little messy now. Such business affairs, papers, taxes! Do you know there was hardly any tax to pay here until after the crash?’ Duchamp spoke then about how lazy he is, how much he enjoys a placid life, and how, although he is no beatnik, he is ‘very like’. Then he abruptly shifted back to the problem of art in America. ‘We don’t speak about science because we don’t know the language, but everyone speaks about art. Art is going down to the people who talk about it. You know, about that question of success: you have to decide whether you’ll be Pepsi-Cola, Chocolat Meunier, Gertrude Stein or James Joyce... James Joyce is maybe Pepsi-Cola. You can’t name him without everybody knowing what you’re talking about. What happened to me is worse, though. That painting [meaning Nude descending a staircase, which he referred to only as "that painting" throughout the interview] was known but I was not. I was obliterated by the painting and only lately have I stepped on it. I spent my life hidden behind it.... You know, an artist only does one or two or three things in his whole life. The rest is merely filling up the hole. It is not desirable to be Pepsi-Cola. It is dangerous.’ - Dore Ashton, An interview with Marcel Duchamp, 1966

[kvetchlandia]

Man Ray Marcel Duchamp, New York City c.1916

"I am not going to New York, I am leaving Paris. That's quite different. Long before the war I already had a distaste for the 'artistic life' I was involved in. – It's quite the opposite of what I'm looking for. – And so I tried, through the Library, to escape from artists somewhat. Then, with the war, my incompatibility with this milieu grew. I wanted to go away at all costs. Where to? My only option was New York..." Marcel Duchamp, letter to Walter Pach, 27 April 1915

[rhysdarbinizedarby]

Road Trip with Rhys and Finn Darby

At 49, New Zealand comedian Rhys Darby says he's finally found the confidence to be a leading man.

He joins Summer Times for a road trip with his son Finn.

The Route? Auckland to Nelson. The passengers? Marcel Marceau and Marcel Duchamp. The vehicle? A 1984 Land Rover.

Music comes courtesy of Finn’s indie-folk-rock band Great Big Cow.

Rhys Darby filming the TV show Our Flag Means Death at Bethells Beach (Te Henga) Photo: Samba Schutte

(click below to listen the audio)

Now based in Los Angeles, Rhys has fond memories of childhood roadies with his mum.

“We went from Pakuranga to Orewa which was lovely. We stayed in a camping ground, and I fondly remember that one because I saw a ghost and saw some big footprints on the beach.

“Bigfoot…turns out was just a big man's foot I think, but you know, when you're young.”

Last year, Darby returned home to Aotearoa to film the second season of the HBO Max series Our Flag Means Death*.

“We were in New Zealand during the rainy season, which could be any time really, last year making that.

“And it was really special because we got to be home. The first year, the first season, we were here in Los Angeles. I was 15 minutes from my house. And that was cool and then the whole show got moved to New Zealand, which was … it's a plus and minus on my account because obviously, I'll leave these guys, but I get to go to the old home.

“And it was really fantastic. Working with the New Zealand crew and just having more New Zealanders in the cast, as well. It's very Aotearoa-heavy season two. So yeah, I'm really proud of it.”

New Zealand comedian Rhys Darby hosting the 2023 International Emmy Awards Photo: chaoticmulaney

In something of a career pivot, Darby also hosted the International Emmy Awards last November.

“It was amazing because I thought 'It's not my bag. I'm not a host, I'm not a jokes guy. And I also don't kind of like rib people, my humour is very optimistic and fun. It's not like the kind of thing Ricky Gervais does where you bring people down to make light of things.

“So when they asked me I was like 'I don't know, what I'm gonna do?' I was picked because it's international and because I can do physical comedy as well. So, I wrote this monologue and also involved a lot of funny walks and some physical stuff. They worked out really well and I had so much praise from the audience and from the producers saying that was one of the best hosts have ever had.

“Because with a strict English-speaking person who's just doing quick gags, half the audience, it just goes over the head. So, what I offered was something that I guess they had more universal appeal.”

Darby currently has a number of films in the pipeline in which he takes a leading role.

“Thanks to Our Flag Means Death I've kind of proven to myself, and hopefully the world, that I can front something.

“So I want to do more like that. I want to do movies, I want to star in a film. I'm writing a screenplay this year. And I'm also involved in about three movie projects that are likely to come together this year, and which have me leading them.

“I've been a character actor for so long, and I've popped up in many, many things in small parts here and there, where I've made everyone laugh, and then I run away.

“But it's taking that next step of going, OK, imagine watching me for an hour and a half, letting me lead you down this track and have the confidence that now finally, at the ripe old age of 49, I think I can do that.”

*Max has announced that it will not be making a third season of Our Flag Means Death

Songs played:

'Iguana Love' by Great Big Cow

'Captain Boyfriend' by Great Big Cow

'The Last Song' by Great Big Cow

Source: RNZ

[dustedmagazine]

Kelby Clark — Language of the Torch (Tentative Power)

Kelby Clark is an LA-by-way-of-Georgia banjo player who blends divergent styles and approaches to forge his own novel direction for the instrument. Over a series of mostly self-released home-spun recordings from the past five or so years, he has honed his approach, expanding the traditions of his point of origin in the American south to include free improvisation and eastern modalities — an alchemy familiar to Sandy Bull, a fellow stretcher of the vocabulary of the banjo and of the concept of “folk” and the traditional. His sparse and appropriately fiery new LP Language of the Torch, available January 10th of next year from Tentative Power, represents a significant milestone in his development of his own science of the banjo, a statement of intent for his artistic practice. It also marks the inaugural 12” LP release from the Baton Rouge, Louisiana label.

Across the seven searching pieces that make up Language of the Torch, Clark constructs a labyrinthine world of music from solo banjo and occasional, subdued harmonium, centered around two longform tracks, “Tennessee Raag Pt.1” and “Tennessee Raag Pt. 3” – there is no part two. These songs help situate the album among its influences, the titles suggesting an imaginational space where Appalachia and India overlap, an interzone frequently visited by practitioners of “American Primitive” music. The intentionally skewed numbering invokes John Fahey, another sometime-raga-obsessive, whose volumes of guitar music are numbered in a non-sensical, non-sequential manner, thumbing the nose at the very concept of numbers and of archiving or cataloging art in volumes. Clark improvises and composes, but on Language of the Torch, the two lengthy “Raags” and the six-minute opening salvo, “Time’s Arc,” feel like the compositions that anchor the shorter, more exploratory tracks that fall between them. Clark’s banjo twangs and drones almost sitar-like during these mesmerizing endurance runs, rough edges flattening over time like water-worn limestone.

In contrast to the patience of these bucolic “Raags,” the shorter tracks on Language of the Torch have an immediacy and attack to them and entertain more old-time flourishes. The concise title cut is perhaps the most traditional, the bends and swoops here feel related to Americana, a brief nod to and deconstruction of familiar forms. Clark is a fluid player, but the percussive nature of the banjo can run counter to fluidity — the most explosive of these improvisations, “Apis,” begins abruptly with an aggressive right-hand trill before it clatters apart and back together again like a musical version of Marcel Duchamp’s Modernist classic “Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2.” This song is a stand-out and the heaviest example of Clark’s burning vision for the banjo, the “concert instrument” ambition expressed by his forebears in the American Primitive movement.

All traditional forms of music, from Indian Classical to Appalachian Old-Time and permutations between, seem narrowly determined upon a superficial look but reveal their universal nature to those willing to let go of semiotics and sink into their visionary streams. This makes these forms excellent starting points for experimentation, established structures that contain the instructions to build new universes, if one is bold enough to try to read them, and that is what Kelby Clark attempts here with the 5-string banjo and the various traditions from which he draws inspiration. The liner notes for Language of the Torch take the form of a poem by hammered dulcimer player Jen Powers, a fellow traveler on the path of exploding the scope of the traditional. I think the passage below illuminates the process at hand, the conversation between tradition and interpreter:

And maybe now you're wondering whether you are the conjurer or the conjured, and if you really want to know which it is

Josh Moss

[beesmygod]

Who would you want to be your mentor: Leonardo Davinci, Dolly Parton, Marcel Duchamp or Jill Thompson

duchamp

[art-damaged]

Gabriel Rico "Nimble and sinister tricks (To be preserved without scandal and corruption) I" / art critic

In February 2020, this 2018 sculpture, which cast various objects like tennis balls, rocks, and a knife within a sheet of glass, was destroyed while on view during the Zona Maco art fair in Mexico City. Looking to photograph the work, an art critic named Avelina Lésper placed a can of Coca-Cola on the piece, at which point the work came loose and shattered on the concrete floor.

Rather than apologize for the incident, Lésper made light of it, explaining that she'd wanted to take the photograph in order to relay her negative views towards the piece. “I had an empty can of soda, I tried to put it on one of the stones, but the work exploded,” she said. “It was like the work heard my comment and felt what I thought of it." She also told the artist's dealer that they should leave the piece as is and try to sell it, citing Marcel Duchamp’s Large Glass. (When the French artist’s glass sculpture was accidentally damaged in transit, he declared that it was "now complete.")

In response, Mexican gallery Galeria OMR, who was showing the work, said in a statement posted to Instagram: "We do not understand how a supposed professional critic of art destroyed a work," adding that by "getting too close to the work of art to put a can of soda on it and take a picture to make a criticism," Lésper had "undoubtedly caused the destruction" and showed “a huge lack of professionalism and respect.”

[merryfortune]

my two cents on the modern art discourse as an art gallery worker who loves modern art and yet works at an art gallery which has soft banned modern art from displaying.

People hate ugly things.

They automatically consider something ugly to be bad.

If it was good, it was beautiful and if it is beautiful it is good.

Deeper messages? No thank you, I want to look at pretty things and I will get pissy at you if you explain that the trash on the floor (<- actual quote I was told to to my face about one of the artworks)

Even though I connected every artwork in that exhibition back to dadaism and modern art of the 80s, I wasn't able to change a single mind of someone who had already decided they hated it. They didn't care that the artist's praxis was about sustainability and using local sources to make her own paint & dye, they wanted to see landscapes made from cheap acrylics. I was in agony that the average Joe who came in didn't know who Barbra Kreuger was or who Marcel Duchamp was. They didn't want to know.

I also think anti-youth sentiment, so many people complained that it was too inner-city student, and "I'm not racist, I don't use slurs but those blackfellas who leech off gov-lov need to get a job, boohoo the stolen generation didn't have an impact!" type racism also plays a part. Like the "trash on the floor" comment was made about an Indigenous artist's work which was named in reference to the removal of certain, racist policies affecting First Nations people.

I loved these artworks, I tried to get other people to see why I loved them so much but it was an uphill battle I lost. But I did get to put my cunt of an aunt in her place so thank you for that at the very least.

[luanotx]

I didn't want to talk about this but I must. The taped banana, Comedian by Maurizio Cattelan, has generated a global debate that is polarizing. The split of opinion ranges from an "amazing monument to the market" to the outright insult to society. In all clarity, the taped banana is not art because it elicits a reaction. It was an elaborately staged and costly satire of the art world and market, which had managed to sell multiple times for millions of dollars. The whole spectacle reflected manipulation: media, markets, promotion-legislating that everyone-I in this case-is participating in the conversation it generated. I had planned to ignore it, but the general scale of controversy is hard to look away from.

Sotheby's auctioneer Oliver Barker overseeing the bidding for Maurizio Cattelan, Comedian (2019) at Sotheby's on November 20, 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Sotheby's.

Historically, the art market has always been a means to take advantage of creativity, hailing truly magnificent and groundbreaking works. However, Cattelan managed to turn things around, getting oligarchs and institutions to spend astronomical prices on a banana taped to a wall. It's not due to the value of the piece alone but rather strategic branding and the pretension of "exclusivity". This same rule applies to luxury brands like Balenciaga when selling chip packet-shaped $1,000 or more bags with cultural elitism.

From a critical standpoint, Comedian certainly echoes the ready-mades of Marcel Duchamp. However, even of Duchamp's Fountain-a common urinal signed and presented as an artwork-was couched in deep philosophical investigation into what art can be, it questioned the traditional notions of artistic creation and authorship and perpetrated a discourse that still perturbs contemporary art today. On the other hand, it is necessary to establish that the ready-mades of Duchamp were very controversial. Some even say they were highly influenced by Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, a trailblazing artist whose innovative ideas were overshadowed by those of her male peers. Among those, Duchamp himself has been criticized for having stolen the ideas from her and years after her death claiming works as his own that might as well have Elsa's stamp of creativity. This history underlines how female artists have been consistently marginalized and inserts the understanding that credit and recognition of art have been positively biased towards male narratives, often at the cost of erasing women's contributions. But that's another subject.

Photo: Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images.

In Cattelan's case, the banana is not making any statement about the nature of art; it is an object commenting on the absurdity of the art market. The famous auction houses, Sotheby's and Christie's, have legitimized this kind of sale of "objects," thus further obliterating the line that separates art from market manipulation. This is where we have to underline one important difference: art is not the market. Hype, exclusivity, and the wishes of wealthy elites often override the intrinsic value that art is a creative and cultural expression.

David Datuna ate Cattelan's banana

The Comedian by Maurizio Cattelan has positive and negative facets that attribute to its controversial status. On the plus side, the piece indeed continues to stir international conversations on the value and definition of art, serving as a cultural mirror that dares viewers to question the power of media, wealth, and branding in the world of art. Furthermore, it acts as a comment on the absurdity of the art market, playfully satirizing its commodification and elitism. Yet, there are major drawbacks with the work. Its execution is shallow compared to Duchamp's ready-mades, which brought profound philosophical questions about art into the world; instead, this banana on the wall feels more like a calculated media stunt. Moreover, it exemplifies the commodification of art and perpetuates the exploitation of creativity in commercial industries. By achieving sales in multimillion-dollar figures, it runs the risk of diluting the standards of art from one based on innovation and craftsmanship toward shock value and market manipulation.

Image : Art Basel visitors in 2019.(Reuters: Eva Marie Uzcategui)

While the great comedy is a brilliant burlesque of the art market, in and of itself it is not art. It is valuable for exposing the machinations of hype and exclusivity that underlie the market in art. It does, however, demean the integrity of art as an expressive medium, an imaginative enterprise, and a cultural force by conflating this mercantile performance with artistic merit.

[thecolorblockcurator]

who is your favorite artist right now, who was your favorite artist 5 years ago and who was your favorite artist 10+ years ago?

Thanks for the question!! It's such an interesting one!!

Time perception is tricky for me - so I'm going to adjust it as right now- back when I was in school studying art history, and before I started studying art history.

My favorite artist right now is ( it's hard to pick just one). Arlette Bauder - chocolettedraws on instagram- I just got a bunch of super cute illustrations, pins, & a notebook from her shop for christmas & they make me so happy!! Lately I've been more into cute illustration - I think with everything going on with the world in such chaos and violence- I just want to see a squishy little guy. Back when I was studying art history I had a lot of different favorite artists, but I loved Claude Cahun & Marcel Moore- I wrote my thesis on them & spoke at a symposium about their work (specifically Moore's erasure from their collaborative artwork) But I also really loved Remedios Varo during that time too. And Duchamp. I love Duchamp- I always forget how much I love his work/him.

Before I studied art history my favorite artist was Renoir. Then I learned about him & really couldn't stand him or his work anymore lol. But I saw his, dance in the city when I was on a trip to Paris when I was 16 & it was so magical. I also really liked Degas at that time too.