HOW'S
TRICKS?
Art critics everywhere secretly or openly
hate Adobe's Photoshop™ and
Photoshop-made art, like film critics
railing against the soullessness of movies
heavily dependent on special effects. As Richard
Huntington put it: "...those oh-so-tricky
Adobe-made abstractions that are a plague
on the art of photography." I believe
the key phrase, here, is "Adobe-made"
as opposed to artist-made. Graphics
softwaremaker Adobe gets most of the credit,
not the artist using it. Photography, too,
wasn't considered art once, because it didn't
seem to require any special magic called
talent to produce photographs of possible
artistic interest. Photographs were camera-made,
not artist-made. The manufacturer of a high-quality
camera gets most of the credit, not the artist
using it. This is especially true of ever
easier to use point-and-shoot cameras utilizing
ever more complex software (that is becoming
like ever easier to use point-and-click, drag-and-drop,
copy-and-paste software) built right into
the camera to produce high-quality images.
Cameras are becoming ever-more-powerful-and-simpler-to-use
computers. So. Are camera operators artists
or technicians? Are they amateurs or professionals?
And, no, self-doubt and credibility problems
won't be solved by buying bigger, fancier,
more expensive, more professional-looking
equipment.
 |
| THE
FUTURE OF AUTOMATION: |
| "Machines
Will Replace Everyone." |
|
|
MAN
VERSUS MACHINE.
As the inventors of the software and hardware
behind Photoshop and photograpy continue
to open up new imaging possibilities by pushing
the boundaries of modern digital technology,
and artists continue to quickly embrace this
"industrial light and magic," how
much credit will artists take for their
inventions? As much as they can get away with,
of course. In a recent retrospective of two
supposedly seminal photo books, The Americans
by Robert Frank and The New West
by Robert Adams, art critic Richard Lacayo
writes: "Both these books changed what
it was possible to show. More than that, they
changed what it was possible to see."
Taking the liberty to rewrite his words, I
could just as easily state: "(The technology
behind) books and photographs changed what
it was possible to show... and see."
Furthermore, I could just as easily suggest
that both the technologies of the modern printing
press and photography should not only share
some of the artists' credit but take most
of their credit.
 |
| Brussels
Famous Pissing Dog Art |
|
THE
TRAGIC RELIGION OF ART: AMAZING DOG TRICKS.
Every dog will learn a trick to get a treat.
It's sadly stomach-tightening to watch art
lovers and critics still genuflecting before
some art icon, artist or fame. Every market
has its salesforce. Every salesforce has its
true believers to get you excited and pump
you up about something's importance and value.
Every salesforce has its shady scammers to
dump worthless crap on you and steal your
money. The art market is no different. Its
pump-and-dump schemes are just more elaborate,
more ornate, more full of hocus-pocus. There's
always room in the art world for another footsoldier
of the art maket to lionize its supposed treasures,
dusting off old relics and uncovering new
artifacts of esthetic faith in a heroic (or
desperate) effort to resusitate and reinvigorate
the lost religion of Art, especially Tragedy,
all in the name of saving us, saving humanity,
saving our lost humanity. There's always room
in the art market for another eloquent salesman
to sell (us on) the importance of the arts.
But one showman stood out above all the rest:
Friedrich Nietzsche.
BEYOND
GOOD AND BAD ART: INVENTING YOUR OWN RELIGION.
Nietzsche believed in the arts. He believed
in it more than any other religion. Nietzsche
tried to find redemption in, and through,
tragic beauty and the arts that specialized
in it. But he left the tragically unsatisfying
religion of art behind to create his own religion,
his own art of living. The religion of art
had become the art of religion. Artists no
longer worshipped art; artists were out to
design a whole new religion. Why worship the
art gods when man can create his own gods.
The only art that mattered was the art of
creating true reverence. And the path to true
reverence was through utter irreverence. Irreverence
was on a mission to destroy all sickly faiths
to find new energy, new reverence. Nietzsche
was out to destroy unrealistic beliefs that
no longer had the power to be believable,
but that was not his mission. His mission
was to redeem his (and our) power to believe.
Unfortunately, instead of finding a new way
to redeem humanity's faith, he became yet
another unredeemed victim. And further crowning
this spectacular fall, Nietzsche unwittingly
became the Art of Tragedy's most modern, most
compelling poster boy for the tragically heroic.
Tragically, Nietzsche failed in his effort
to reinvent religion through his own special
art of ideas — this superhuman "revaluation
of all values" he undertook was the noblest
mythical stuff of comic book legends made
believable for intellectual realists. Cynics,
sceptics, realists, relativists and nihilists
scoffed at the optimistic naivety of communist
idealism and all forms of idealism's feeble
grasp of reality, especially the reality of
human nature. But they found real sustenance
in Nietzsche's insights, even though Nietzsche's
own quest for lasting realistic ideals ended
in defeat. And while Nietzsche's great imagination
failed to deliver him (let alone us) from
destruction, it failed in the most truly inspiring
and dispiritingly tragic way imaginable. It
was almost enough to turn some towards that
old time religion. Others have never looked
back since.
 |
| Unknown
Dog Pissing On Nazi Propaganda |
|
HERO-WORSHIP
WITH NO HERO.
Nietzsche was no Nazi. Nietzsche was no mere
fascist or nihilist. Don't believe the strident
Nazi propaganda claiming otherwise. His thoughts
saw through the simple-minded criminal cruelty
of fascists and communists, alike, and derided
not only their basic lack of honesty about
the baseness of their own cruelty but also
the cowardliness of this dishonesty. Nietzsche
was determined to expose the all-pervasive
cowardliness of all mankind's convient ignorance
towards his own cruel steak. Whether self-inflicted
or turned outwards, cruelty and destructiveness
was hidden in all man's thoughts, impulses
and actions, moral and otherwise. And Nietzsche
thought he could turn this ignoble natural
instinct to hurt and hide into something more
noble by first exposing it to the light of
day. He didn't believe the path to virtue
lain in banning our cruelty. That only pushed
it underground. He wanted to openly and honestly
acknowledge our hidden inhumanity, then embrace
our blood-thirsty desire to destroy our enemies
or competitors by aiming it towards higher
achievements that would transform and sublimate
it in the process. Nietzsche did not believe
morality rid man of his cruelty; he believed
morality only hid and perverted it. And he
believed a more honest approach to man's inhumaity
would free man to achieve greater things than
just the mere destruction of one's enemies.
Nietzsche's thoughts on this open process
of sublimation and enlightenment were the
precursors for Freud's ideas about civilization's
successful or unsuccessful attempts to sublimate
man's uncivilized instincts.
HERO-WORSHIP
IN SEARCH OF A HERO.
Though Nietzsche is most often remembered
for his attacks on the moral values of Western
civilization, people forget his attacks were
rooted in his sincere attempt to answer the
ancient question "What is noble?"
And his answer was not "Nothing."
Nietzsche was not just a hero-worshiper without
a hero; He was a hero-worshiper in search
of a hero. He was not just a disillusioned
idealist without an ideal; He died an idealist
searching for an ideal. Nietzsche was in search
of a more honest ideal—one that was
more honest about man's primal power-hungry
nature. Every man wants the power to be free,
the power to choose, the power to control
his life. He saw through man's attempt to
disguise his basic thirst for power with the
moral trappings of Western civilization. And
his quest to find something noble to aspire
to was the last intellectually convincing
quest for the truly ideal and heroic in man.
Nietzsche did not come to destroy man's moral
values; he came to rescue them. He came to
stop the modern erosion of values that he
had the foresight to see. He came to revitalize
modern civilization's steadily unconvincing
values by reinventing them. But something
had to die before it could be reborn. Some
believe more harm than good came "in
the wake of Nietzsche's savage attack on the
West's moral underpinnings." Perhaps
we're still in the process of transforming;
still dying to be reborn.
 |
| Unknown
Man Pissing Off Someone Famous
And Powerful |
|
CREATIVE
DESTRUCTION.
Life is cruel. Nature is cruel. Death is cruel.
Life destroys life. Nature destroys life.
Death destroys life. And in every case, the
destruction of life is cruel. Cruelty is a
form of destructiveness. But a form of destruction
can also be a form of "creative destruction"
if something is created when something is
destroyed. And it was this creative form of
destruction Nietzsche was working towards
in his effort to revalue all values,
especially our moral values. If Nietzsche
seemed to be trying to destroy some values,
it was in an effort to create new ones. Nietzsche
did not value cruelty. He did not desire the
destruction of life. Nietzsche valued only
one thing: the truth. Despite all of the supposed
destructiveness of Nietzsche's ideas on the
West's moral foundations, he never sought
to destroy the truth. Nietzsche believed in
the truth. He was only out to destroy the
feeble lies and hypocrisy he saw all around
him (especially in those who believed they
were kind, moral and just) in order to get
to the truth. Nietzsche was out to destroy
lies in order to reveal the truth. If the
truth could only be seen by first stripping
away cherished illusions, so be it. It was
more important to grasp the truth than to
hang on to comforting lies that had lost their
power to comfort (himself, at least) and heal.
CREATION
= DESTRUCTION? If
you believe in the physicist's Principle of
Conservation of Matter and Energy, then even
the concepts of creation and destruction may
be illusions. This principle of physics says
matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed
but may be changed from one form into another.
So what, if anything, is lost in this transformation?
More importantly, what is lost by a conscious
living being undergoing this process of transformation?
What is lost when we age and die? What is
lost when we are destroyed? Do we really lose
our lives? Are we really destroyed? Is life
only transformed and never really created
or destroyed? Here's a comforting thought
and bone I'll throw your way if you have the
stomach for it: Perhaps even death—the
destruction of life—is an illusion...
if you can apply science's measurable Principle
of Conservation of Matter and Energy to the
unmeasurable aspects of animate life once
called spiritual. Perhaps nothing is really
lost when we die, not even consciousness and
memory. But even if you hardened materialists
cannot swallow empty speculations about anything
that cannot be convincingly measured and proved,
it's easy to see how every form of destruction
creates a new form of reality—no matter
how brutal the destruction or unacceptable
the newly created reality is for us or others.
Everyone dreams of destroying their enemies
and competitors. We dream of living in a paradise
free from fear and attack, free from (our
own) death and destruction. But I'm sure our
enemies and competitors would take exception
to being annihilated in order to make this
dream of ours a reality. The real trick—the
real challenge—is (and has always been)
transforming human reality into a mutually
rewarding existence without deceptive illusions
and lies to hide or condone our own and nature's
brutality.
 |
|
ISN'T
THAT SPECIAL. (ANYONE CAN BE A PHOTOGRAPHER
OR AN ARTIST OR A WRITER... THE REAL TRICK
IS BECOMING RICH AND FAMOUS FROM IT.)
Get paid (for doing nothing)! Get recognition
(for just being you)! Even get rich and famous
(for no good reason)! Be lucky! There's simply
no better way to be. Just be lucky... and
you'll be happy. It's everyone's daydream.
It's everyone's dream job. Yes, every dog
wants a treat. Everyone wants a reward. Everyone
wants more rewards, especially when he sees
others getting and having more. Everyone wishes
to be oh so very rewardingly special. Everyone
painfully wishes to be more rewardingly special
when others appear more rewarded for being
more special than him. Everyone wishes to
be miraculously gifted with that magical special
something we collectively call talent.
It's simply called talent because we have
no other real name for this strange, precious
unknown. Talent is, and remains, a profound
mystery. So where is the talent in art photography?
Where is the talent in art created with software
programs like Photoshop? Photography
and Photoshop seem to be more about
commonly available mechanical tools, techniques
and technology that can easily be used by
anyone to produce and reproduce so-called
works of art, rather than about uncommon artistic
talent and skills possessed only by a unique
few. So the people who engage in it don't
seem that unique or special. After all, value
in the art world is ruled by principles of
supply-and-demand just like the rest of the
world. If "new technologies enable even
amateurs to create sophisticated images,"
then the glut of these new sources of seemingly
sophisticated artistic images will significantly
impact and degrade the overall value of those
art images that can't distinguish themselves
from this glut and no longer offer any real
sense of uniqueness, i.e., unique value. For
example, the unique value of traditional one-of-a-kind
handmade paintings will disappear the moment
some new technology (such as a high-quality
inkjet printer) can perfectly copy and counterfeit
them like paper money.
TRUTH
VERSUS BEAUTY.
God was not dead. Not even for Nietzsche.
Not while he was still sane. For God was Truth.
Nietzsche ultimately worshiped only at the
altar of Truth. So... if it turned out Beauty
was not Truth... that the Truth contradicted
Beauty... that Beauty was a lie... then Beauty
would be cast aside for the ugly Truth. But
in the end, both Truth and Beauty abandoned
Nietzsche. It matters little if a man thinks
he believes in the Truth more than Beauty.
Because the Truth becomes unbearable if there
is no beauty in it... just as Beauty becomes
unbearable if there is no truth in it. Truth
is just simply making sense. Making sense
creates harmony out of the disharmony and
violence of senseless chaos. Making sense
creates harmony in the minds of those making
sense. And what is harmony of any kind if
not Beauty? Beauty is harmony!
Beauty makes the Truth tolerable. Beauty not
only makes the Truth tolerable, Beauty makes
the Truth enjoyable. Harmony makes tragic
beauty possible. This music soothes the savage
beast of suffering. Making sense turns painful
truths into beautiful wisdom. Suffering that
makes sense achieves harmony and, therefore,
beauty. The only real suffering is senseless
suffering. Ultimately, there is no sense if
there is absolutely no beauty to be found
in truth and no truth to be found in beauty.
Innate harmony and beauty exist in any thing,
any person, any world that makes sense. But
making sense goes way beyond just making logical
sense. Making sense is a harmonious form of
esthetic pleasure that finds great harmony,
pleasure and beauty in the strange... and
mysterious.
 |
| Unknown
Dog Pissing On The Famous |
|
ART
IS UNORIGINAL.
"Is it an original?" you ask. "It's
not original?" you say. Who cares. Every
successful artist is first an instinctive
mimic and talented counterfeiter. Art schools
everywhere teach students to slavishly copy
"the masters" until they have the
balls and wherewithal to start their own school.
Every artist immitates what he likes and copies
what he sees. The realist copies reality.
The dreamer copies not only his own dreams
but everyone else's. For everyone is fundamentally
dreaming the same basic dream: immortal fame—the
feeling you know you're going to live forever!
Who cares if it's false; It seems real because
it feels real. Who cares if it's an illusion.
Every artist's vision is profoundly unoriginal
because everyone's goal is fundamentally the
same: being immortalized —that timeless
feeling of knowing you're living forever!
It all comes down to fame? Yes, immortal fame.
It all comes down to fame because it's all
about being immortalized by fame, immortalized
by recognition, by massive amounts of positive
public and private recognition. It's all about
getting recognition—the recognition
of one's own immortality. Most of us only
strive to get this recognition from our friends
and loved one. While others are determined
to realize this common dream on a much larger
scale. But everyone secretly dreams of great
conquests of recognition. Everyone dreams
of immortality. Everyone dreams of being famous.
IMMORTALITY'S
RECOGNITION VALUE.
Nothing's more important than being important.
And nothing seems or feels more important
than being immortalized by the recognition
of fame. Fame may not be a lasting sense of
importance, but nothing else lasts longer.
Art is never about (the importance of) the
subject matter; art is about (the importance
of) recognition, lasting recognition. The
artist gives his subject a sense of importance
by devoting his powers of recognition to it.
The more he devotes to it, the more important
it becomes (to him). We not only give a sense
of importance to everything we pay attention
to and recognize; we immortalize it to a degree.
The love & glory of star power's intoxicating
sense of immortality—found in Big Recognition,
Big Love, public and private—is everyone's
common goal. Ambition is the same everywhere;
no matter where you go; no matter who is involved;
no matter what shape, dream or name takes
hold. Everyone is chasing Big Love's Big Recognition,
in hopes of being immortalized by it. Everyone
is chasing a sense of immortality through
the power of recognition. This is especially
true of the power of positive recognition.
Ambition has everyone chasing the Recognition
of Immortality. The value of recognition lies
in the sense of immortality it offers. Recognition
of Love = Recognition of Immortality.
 |
|
DOG-EAT-DOG
COMPETITION FOR ATTENTION AND RECOGNITION.
Everyone wants Big Love. Everyone wants Big
Love in the form of Big Recognition. But every
form of Big Recognition requires the participation
of others. No matter how content you are devoting
all your time and attention to something in
your own world, you want others to recognize
its importance in order to confirm it. You
want others to recognize you and your world's
importance and make it all appear bigger and
more real. Big Love, Big Recognition, requires
others to pay attention to you and recognize
you. Unfortunately, everyone else wants to
make (and is making) the same demands on you.
Everyone must compete for their own and other's
attention and recognition. But worse than
having to compete for Big Love, Big Recognition,
is having to convince or trick others into
believing you deserve more love and recognition
than them. The worse thing about having to
compete is having to make others feel you
are more important and valuable than them.
Everyone is a tricky-little-dicky out to prove
he or she is more uniquely valuable than his
competitors. Everyone is a competitor. Everyone
is your competitor, for love &
money. Whether successful at the con or not,
everyone is a con artist out to conjure up
and sell an insulting impression that he is
more lovable, more important, more praiseworthy..
than you. Everyone is a con. Everything is
a con. Everyone is a dog. Everyone is dogfood.
Everyone is a cannibal. Time to eat you. Yes,
I hate all art. I hate anyone more famous
and successful than me. I hate any effort
I make to be more famous and successful than
you. I hate competition even as I compete.
But I hate losing even more than I hate winning.
I hate having to compete. But that never stopped
me from competing. God, I hate life. But that
doesn't stop me from living. That doesn't
stop me from wanting to live! We're all in
the same big, stinking, sinking boat. Some
just drown faster than others. We don't have
to face it only because the perishable hope
and supplies in our miserable little life
rafts haven't run out just yet. But when they
do, look out! Watch your back. Time to eat
you.. and you. Art nihilism wants to devour
Art's rich and famous. I propose... that for
no damn good reason: Art
= Fashion = Fame = Money.
LOVE
IS BLIND AND FAME IS EVEN BLINDER.
Want to be famous? Piggyback something else's
fame. Piggyback someone else's fame. Want
to be famous? Shoot someone famous. Start
a fight with someone famous. Be seen with
someone famous. Make love to someone famous.
I don't care how many times celebrity photographer
Any Lebowitz goes down on famous photography
critic Susan Sontag (On Photography)
and changes Sontag's mind, art photography
is a mercenary scam... like the rest of the
art market. Beyond dumb luck, the only genius
at work here (if any) is marketing genius.
At best, Liebiwitz didn't need Sontag's approval
because she already achieved a level of star
power, somehow, without her. But celebrities
everywhere love to party and have sex with
other celebrities... of equal or greater stature.
At worse, Sontag's critical reversal about
photography is nothing more than the product
of a casting couch: a less important, less
powerful or less famous starlet sexually auditioning
for and trading favors with a bigger, more
important, more powerful star to further her
own career. Or perhaps it was just peer-pressure
from an art world that ultimately takes its
cues from the art market's desire to make
money. Why say photography isn't art if you
can't make money off of it. Just because Sontag
made her reputation and money off of that
message doesn't mean the rest of the art world
can. It's just more profitable to redefine
the concept of art to include photography
as a legitamate art form. As Warhol —
that calculatedly self-effacing art whore,
wise ass and darling of the art world —
was man enough to say: "Art is what you
can get away with."
 |
| Unknown
Dog Picking Up And Cleaning Up After
The Famous |
|
DEMOCRATIZATION
OF ART!
(More peer-pressure for Susan Sontag.)
We all want to get away with it. We all want
to get away with as much undeserved praise,
profit and happiness as we can. Life is randomly
unfair. And the whimsies of art are just as
unjust. Life randomly rewards and brutalizes.
But the art world brands its own whimsical
brutality with extra special seductiveness.
We all deserve to be happy. Don't we? We all
deserve to be as happy as any of life's random
success stories. So what about the rest of
us luckless, artless uglies? Don't we deserve
a place in the sun and spotlight, too? What
about the whole world's desire to be famously
"artistic" without much effort,
talent or skill? We want praise and profit
from this glamourous pursuit and fun lifestyle,
too. We want to feel as good about ourselves
as the successful do. We can't all be as lucky
or gifted as you and those you approve of.
Or can we? Democratize the glamour of the
arts! Expand the arts to make everything artistic.
Expand your conception of art to make everything
art. Give me a golden shower. Make ugly ol'
me popular. Make me beautiful. Call me beautiful.
Declare my crap is art. Invite me to your
party. Make me the star attraction. Make me
famous. Make everyone famous. Call everyone
beautiful! Spread the word. Spread the joy.
Spread the wealth. Spread the love. Make everyone
an artist! Make everyone beautiful! Make everyone
successful. Spare no expense! Build a classy
museum to house us all! Erect a monument to
all our memories. Fortify everyone's fragile
ego. Raise a temple of worship to us all.
Sanctify every one of us. Transform everyone
into a god and goddess. Immortalize us all!
ART
IS A GAME TO BE GAMED.
Art is the game of love. It's the most
glamourous, most rewarding international competition
for the world's love because it's all about
fame... and the fortunes made from the fortunes
willing to pursue and woo it. I'm not asking
you to lower your standards. I'm telling you
I want to level the playing field. I don't
want to cheat. I want to change the rules
of the game so I can win, too. I want to score.
I want to be a winner just like you. I hope
you lucky winners don't need or want me to
be a loser just so you can be a winner. I
don't think art needs to create losers just
so it can pick winners. I think art can be
a win-win situation. Don't you? I said, don't
you?! Don't make me come after you. Admire
me and I'll kiss your equally admirable ass.
Snub me and I'll kick your elitist ass. Do
me... right or wrong... and I'll return the
favor. It's pay back. It's karma.
 |
| Unknown
Dog With Its Unknown Owner Hoping
For Best In Show |
|
THE
CON IS ON.
Worship me, not you! Make me more famous than
you. Make me more lovable than you. Fame is
public acclaim. It's public lovemaking. Fame
is the show business of love. Some may say
it's the pornography of love. And everyone
in the art world is in the business (of fame).
Art is not only in the business of love; art
is in the business of showing love. Every
art show is a show of love. Every famous art
personality, every famous art object, is shown
all sorts of love. Fame is art's only real
business. Fame is what the art market sells.
Fame is the only truth, the only beauty, the
only happiness, the only value, it has the
expertise to sell. Fame is a popularity contest,
and so is art. The only expertise you need
to judge what is art is knowing what you like.
But to be successful in the art market, it's
more important to know what others like. You
need to know what is the most popular of what
is popularly known as art. You need to know
what is popular with the experts. You need
to know who the most popular experts are.
Yes... the most respected experts and artists,
the most respected products and people, can
be the most popular. But being popular is
more important than being respected. And being
famous is more important than being popular.
For fame is what really counts towards popularity.
The extremely popular can become famous. But
fame has the power to create its own popularity...
all by itself. Fame has the power to create
demand. Fame has the power to create a market.
So create a market for me! Create demand for
me. Make me famous! I demand it! And if I
must.. must.. compete with you.., I demand
to be more in demand than you.
FAME
= ATTENTION. ATTENTION ECONOMY = FAME ECONOMY.
"Where there's a wealth of information,
there's a poverty of attention." Society's
not an information economy. It's not an information
society. Society's a fame economy because
it's an attention economy. It's a fame society
running on a fame economy. For society is
created by attention and runs on attention,
but there's a limited supply of attention
for an infinite demand on it. Everyone wants
attention. The markets demand it. The markets
want as much attention as is humanly possible
to get. The markets demand fame! Attention
is the building blocks of fame. Attention
fuels fame, and fame fuels the engine of the
marketplace. Fame fuels the market. Fame rules
the market. Fame rules every market, not just
the art market. Every market is a fundamentally
showy business trying to show off its wares.
There is no business
except show business. And fame
is both its best seller and star salesman.
Fame is the most primal and most powerful
form of marketing.
 |
|
SHOWDOGS:
EVERYONE IS IN SHOW BUSINESS.
Every person is a complete unknown trying
to know how to be known. Every person is an
undiscovered star trying to be discovered.
Every person is a salesman trying to sell
his own sense of worth to others. Every salesman
is a showman trying to make himself and his
wares more popular, more famous. Every showman
is an adman campaigning to make his brand
a beloved household name. Fame = Advertising.
They want your love and money. Fame wants
your love. The markets want your money. But
fame is inseparable from the markets. Fame
= The Market. The market is all about
selling, and selling is all about advertising,
and advertising is all about fame. You can't
sell anything that isn't known or knowable
in some way. People can't buy what they don't
know exists. And fame is the brightest beacon
of conscious existence, i.e., of known existence.
It's all about getting known. It's all about
being known. Everything we know is a form
of free or paid advertising. But fame is the
most intense form of advertising. The marketplace
is centerstage for fame's show business circus
of love. Every market is a popularity contest
for your love and money. The market does not
merely clamor for fame; the market is
famous. It's famous for being where all the
action is. It's famous for being where all
the money is. It's overwhelmingly famous for
all the spectacular love, joy and glory it
showcases and sells. The market is a spectacularly
insatiable star clamoring louder and louder
for more fame on which to build its fortunes.
WHAT
WOULD JESUS DO IF HAPPINESS COULD NOT BE FOUND
IN THE TRUTH? BECOME AN ARTIST!
Say you were in the market for both truth
and happiness. Say you had to pick between
truth or happiness, what would you do? Pick
the plain, unvarnished truth; no matter how
boring, ugly, hurtful or painful it is? No?
So. You pick happiness over truth. Why? Because
happiness is more desirable... thus more popular...
than truth. In that case, I'm happy to make
fun of you. For as you see: No one chooses
truth over happiness. Some just find happiness
where you do not. The truth is: Being happy
is the only truth worth knowing. So, as always,
what follows is meant only for those it pleases:
Artists
are dogs. Art is a dog show. And the art market
is a dog race run by rats and won by the trickiest
rat. So again one asks: "How's tricks?"
This art critic says: "Life is short.
A very short rat race. Truth is a whore. Beauty
is a lie. Enjoy it while you can. Enjoy it
any way you can. Enjoy."
CONFESSIONS
OF A WORTHLESS ART BUM: "The Artist As
Ancient Trickster!" (Sorry. No self-help
here for the starving, beleaguered artist.
Save yourself. I can't even save myself. Doggy
heaven here I come.) The
original shorter
bum confession is in the same old place:
below video 4, "Extreme (Photoshop) Makeover."
