Pat my monkey

At the Remodern Review, critic Richard Bledsoe addresses the “art” of Jeff Koons, one of whose works, Michael and Bubbles, is pictured above:

….Welcome to the inverse values of the nasty Postmodern world, where our betters try to force us to accept that bad is good and stupid is clever.

This isn’t about the money. The finances are just a side show for most art world participants. Big league art deals are exercises in money laundering, tax evasion, and insider trading, but not that many get into that high roller category. What is most concerning is what it says about those controlling our cultural expressions.

The real perk for most establishment art types is a sense of superiority. Supporting a hoax substitute for art gets converted into the gold of social prestige through the alchemy of Postmodern dogma. It’s yet another proof that our current crop of cultural elitists are really not advanced at all.

Elitists hype outsourced and infantile art because of their own limitations. They lack depth and real achievement themselves, so they can’t tell the difference. They embrace this failure of character as a badge of honor, and mandatory for admission to their tribe.

In Koons’ defence it should be noted he has never directly taken an arts-grant dollar, so far as is known. Nor has he made an “installation” of his own excrement, as a Melbourne artist recently blessed with an Australia Council grant is inclined to do.

Bledsoe can be read in full via this link or the one below.

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