taste

I'm beginning to think that my approach to art has been all wrong. While I've been bogged down with the mundanities of personal vision, integrity, beauty vs. truth, and all the age-old questions artists ask, I've totally neglected attending to what really matters: fashion. I've also forgotten about the cult of personality. From watching attention-getting artists as diverse as Damien Hirst and Hazel Dooney I can't help but wonder if what I really need is a big schtick.

This book, while tearing down the culture of taste, might actually serve as a sort of reverse "how to" manual.

...authentic ways of talking, making judgments or artistic preferences are simply the latest fashion statements, earnest attempts to fill an intellectual and spiritual vacuum that don't pick out any real properties in the world.

But for a truly analytical look at the absurdity of taste, this is the place to go. The entry on Banksy does a bang-up job of wrapping up taste in art in a neat little package. And I love this:

If you find all of this to simply be too much work and wish to ensure that white people will never speak to you about art again, there is an easy escape. Simply mention your favorite artist is Thomas Kinkade and that you are in negotiations to purchase an original from the store in the mall. This will effectively end any friendship you have with a white person.

I know, I know. I need to get off the interwebs NOW if I want to retain any sense of my own direction and get some real work done. But first I need to hire a wife.