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CULTURAL STAGNATION IN AN ERA OF CONSTANT CHANGE
We live in the era of personal and societal disfunction where ethical and moral strictures, religious mores, discussion of mortality and time have all been consigned to the garbage can. All we have to go on is hindsight and the belief that anything worthwhile has already happened. Peter Allen may well have been right in suggesting that we will go on recycling the past forever.
ALGORITHMS AND CULTURAL WORTH OR HOW I GOT ENOUGH VOTES TO BE POPULAR
Cultural worth can always be measured by monetary worth or if that fails to impress, an algorithm.
MORAL RECTITUDE AND PANIC IN THE ARTS
If we were talking about a picture of a gun [not banned at the moment] then I could understand it. Any picture of any gun will likely send people into the streets on a mindless killing spree. In some countries, men in particular collect guns to hang on the wall and salivate over with the eternal hope of being able to legally or illegally kill someone…and of course, many do.
BROKEN DOGS AND UNDERPERFORMING FOOTBALL CLUBS
There was no mention of Koon’s dogs with any of these collectors but underperforming football clubs under foreign management may well be seen as analogous to broken art on the market looking for a new owner.
THE COLLECTIVE, THE COLLECTED AND THE COLLECTOR. A MATTER OF WHO YOU KNOW.
It’s all a matter of who you know
THE VISCERAL, THE THERAPEUTIC, THE INTELLECTUAL. I understand all that but what does it mean?
How very odd that the aspect of being human that we value so much may well prove to be the fatal blow to life on earth
THERE IS ALWAYS THE FAUSTIAN ALTERNATIVE TO ARTISTIC LEGACY.
One thing is true, quality alone does not guarantee a legacy any more than does a life of singular debauchery that may titillate the airport novel seeker. Some artists live on as a one-line synopsis while others have their position established in the greater narrative via relatives.
SUCCESS IS MINE BUT THEN AGAIN I’M A SCORPIO
…..Pluto, Mars and an eclipse around my birthday promise a ‘march of destiny’, ‘awareness of creative power’ and ‘material success’. So be it! My life as an artist is about to change direction
THE AGE OF THE INFLUENCER AND THE PRICE OF CULTURE
Measuring the value of culture as simply a product and function of induced economic forces driven by prediction data is something else – perhaps the beginning of the end of artists having any control over their destinies unless they employ an influencer whose primary research tool is Tik Tok.
AND I THOUGHT THAT MAKING ART WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DIFFICULT – HOW STUPID AM I? STUPID AS AN ARTIST.
……training, the development of technique and time lead to art and great art. It isn’t the product of accident or indolence or short cuts. S
THE ART OF POLITICS AND THE POLITICS IN ART
As Sir Humphrey Appleby once said in Yes, Minister, the much-acclaimed BBC satire, being in politics and being in government are not the same thing.
LIFE, DEATH, ART AND DECORATION
1722 Europe was characterised by financial shocks and stock market bubbles, a controversial vaccine keeping the barely-recognised smallpox virus at bay, Russia invading a neighbouring nation and the Versailles legacy of Louis XIV bankrupting France. Not much has changed it would seem. Three centuries later inflation, Covid, Putin and the excesses of royalty still dominate the news.