I was being fatuous, too — I can totally see why people don’t bring up the “fine art” and “they show this in a GALLERY?!?” aspect. It’s because it opens you up to being accused of being a pretentious art snob.

That’s where guys like Frey, Mencia, and now Goldman get their “power” — by building up this image of being politically incorrect and thumbing their nose at the establishment.

You try to point out how A Million Little Pieces was bad writing even before it was discovered it was all made up, and people say that was the whole point; it was “raw” and “honest.” You call Mencia a hack for making the same old Cheney-shooting-his-huntin’-partner jokes and cracks about illegal immigration, and people will say you’re PC and too easily offended by somebody who’s just “keepin’ it real.”

And Goldman already has his responses set up for people who point out that crudely-drawn stick figures spouting T-shirt slogans is trash that doesn’t belong in a gallery at all, much less going for thousands of bucks a pop. “That’s the whole point, man! People take this stuff too seriously!” That’s why you get people trying to defend Goldman’s theft by talking about Lichtenstein and “what is art, anyway?” as if that were relevant.

You just want to take some of these people and shake them. Tell them you can be “edgy” and political and not be a total drooling moronic hack, or a pompous liberal pedagogue spouting crowd-pleasing speeches. And that there are plenty of people blurring the line between low art and high art without getting too wrapped up in pretension, but they’re still making art, and not putting out uninspired garbage.

You’re the first person among the dozens of blogs commenting on this thing that has actually pointed out the sheer BANALITY of D&G product.

Not a knock on the folks he ripped off, but honestly, as GALLERY art? The subtext of the whole debacle is the pathetic state of the fine art community.

Again,
thank you