This is meant as parody, but it’s too 
not to share:
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Gallery owners and collectors. And I am being quite serious.
When overrated “artist” Tracey Emin got a really skilled embroiderer to produce one of her “pieces” it immediately became art because Charles Saatchi said it was. Who even knows the name of the embroiderer?
A lot of art is actually a bubble. Galleries and collectors get together and decide what is in and will be promoted, and thus create value (in the form of price) out of thin air. A few artists benefit. There’s a story of Lucien Freud talking to Francis Bacon (both pretty creepy btw). Freud remarked that he was thinking of buying some of his own paintings as an investment. “Oh,” said Bacon, “I can’t afford to buy mine.”*
It’s depressing because there is this big grey area between handicrafts and art, most of the former seems to be produced by women, most of the latter still by men. And when you do find successful women artists, some of them at least seem to be doing it by exploiting other women’s technical skills.
*cum grano salis
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This always bothers me!!
Ai Wei Wei’s sunflower seeds weren’t fucking made by him!
Damien Hirst didn’t paint all those damn dots!
But thats “art”!
(flip side, I freaking love conception/environmental art like Christo & Jeanne Claude. And I will fight you over the genius of Rothko!)
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No need. (I was taught art by an Irish Expressionist and an English Jewish Communist. I expect as a result I have some odd ideas on the subject. But they succeeded in imbuing me with a love of art. The first time I went to the Uffizi, it was such a mind-blowing experience that I don’t think I ever fully recovered.)
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I’ve seen Voice of Fire in person while visiting Ottawa, and my god, its amazing.
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Indeed. I think another part is whether you do it for lofty academic artistic reasons, or in order to make a living. I recall a teacher I once had for a science fiction writers’ course, who said that the attitude of the more literary people around was “If you’re so good, why aren’t you a failure?” I think that meant “a failure at being able to support yourself.” The teacher was supporting himself at the time, though as he said “at the McDonald’s server level.” He joked that his goal was to support himself at the McDonald’s manager level.
Yeah. A cousin married a New York gallery owner. I met her once. Just for conversation’s sake I mentioned I liked abstract art. Somewhere along the way, I said I’d bought an abstract painting by Richard Mann that I fell in love with at a mall, something similar to this:
My goodness!!! The fact that I bought it at a mall just irritated the heck out of her. Well, it’s the only painting I ever bought, and I still really like it. It looks like an underwater mud volcano.
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I mean, i hate him… but I also kind of love him? Like… he’s a genius at making money and thats a kind of art? LOL - but I think I’d have a hard time not punching him in the face if I ever met him, you know?
Have you seen the trailer for The Square?
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Making money is Koons’ only genius. I think “his” works are mostly incredibly ugly kitsch, like a gift store ashtray for really rich people.
The Square looks interesting. Gotta love those piles of dirt (or whatever; haven’t set up my sound yet.) Thanks!
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If you haven’t seen it, run don’t walk to watch Exit Through the Gift Shop about art and commerce. It is so freakin’ genius.
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Mildly NSFW
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Perhaps you would like Cayce Zavaglia, who embroiders portraits?
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There’s several topics I could put this under, but I just watched One of Us on Netflix. It’s about Hasidic Jews that leave the Hasidic world. It’s not just women, but the pressures on them and control of them is the classic combo: keep em ignorant and scared of the outside world and breed em young and often. Sad what the men endure too. And how the laws in NY allow it all to continue v
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I’m like that with gay men. I have no idea why because I’ve been there and done enough to know that I really don’t enjoy having sex with men, but I get hit on a lot by them. Makes me feel icky.
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There’s appropriation and then there’s misappropriation. I regard the test as: Could this be an advertising/marketing campaign for the original subject? Then it’s misappropriation.
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On my first date with Mrs S, I spent most of my time wittering on about music taxonomy in punk and related genres. In my defence she kept asking questions and I have a deep-seated need to answer.
I’m still not sure how I got a second date.
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Took me a while!
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We have Hassidim in London too, mainly in the area around Stamford Hill. They tend to get a free pass from the authorities, and their failure to educate children to State norms (including learning English) hasn’t had a very strong response from the authorities.
I’ve met Sephardis who regard the Hassidim as not really being Jewish - they regard them as being Poles who invented a new religion, and see many of the problems of Hassidism as springing from Polish society. Some of the same elements are indeed seen in modern Polish society, which is one reason a lot of Polish immigrants to the UK don’t want to go back, according to surveys. (I don’t blame them - I think we should do a swap, progressive Poles for our Leave voters who would be right at home in a nationalist, xenophobic environment.)
I don’t know why Hassidic practices that amount to abuse of women and children are tolerated. It’s not as if more than a small minority of British Jews support them.
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I get that religious expression is fundamental to our government, but when your religion involves abuse, rape, and refusal to educate, I think there needs to be action against your religion. I saw a similar documentary about the Amish.
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