THOUGHTS: The Art World Response
The art world triples down on its absurdity after an overwhelming rejection of the politics that it helped embed in our institutions
I was curious if the art world, which can surely be represented as a whole by publications like Artforum might do a little self-reflection in the wake of such a resounding rejection of their brand of minority fetishizing slave morality, which it (the art world) co-pioneered alongside academia. Even if not a major ideological overhaul, which is impossible for urban liberals living in such intense bubbles, I thought it might be possible that art world denizens could at least go the route of AOC and be smart enough to adjust to the obvious message of the 2024 election, and remove pronouns from their bios, so to speak…
But, no. They will triple down. If this letter by editor Tina Rivers Ryan, a hack who was hired to replace David Velasco in the wake of some Gaza backlash on Velasco’s end and might be an AI for all I know, is to be considered the lesson learned by the art world this year, then it has learned nothing. It’ll keep its race communism and wokeness fully alive, insisting upon it even harder, even as it dies in the media and larger society around it. Social justice in art, says Ryan, is now a “necessity”, no longer just a “luxury”. The fact that she’s self-aware enough to know that 2010s activism was indeed a luxury is highly telling; on some level, these people know how ridiculous they sound. Completely trapped in their own mental and social prisons, however, they find new ways to justify their ultimately absurd ways of thinking, and preach them even harder at the other inmate lifers, locked up in their own ideological Riker’s.
Due to the art world’s refusal to center itself around the topic of art and continue to adhere to a maniacal and chaotic diversity politics, it’ll continue to lose any and all relevance. The extent to which the art world has plummeted from what was once considered the peak of forward thinking creativity to an absolutely destitute and ideologically corrupt space of propaganda, and not even effective propaganda but cheap and easily dismissed propaganda, has been stunning. It will go on for years like this, continuing to give major museum shows to “artists” based on their pronouns or their exotic races, writing its press releases to speak on behalf of the marginalized people, whoever those people are. And the reality is, the bubble will shrink, and shrink. Artists will realize they need to subvert and circumnavigate the art world, which will be irrelevant forever.
And the tragedy is, it doesn’t have to be like that. Artforum, Interview Magazine, BOMB, all of these publications could be great if they simply stopped with this bullshit, and hired new people with new ideas (like the creator of Safety Propaganda perhaps, he’d be a great Interview editor, just saying), the entire industry and culture could be rejuvenated for a new America and a brave new world. I hope there are some big money backers out there behind these institutions that see the writing on the wall, and I hope these conversations are being had. But, I’m cynical. I doubt they are or ever will be.
“Artists will realize they need to subvert and circumnavigate the art world, which will be irrelevant forever.”
Fantastic. This is how era-defining movements are born, which makes this an exciting time to be alive and working, albeit against the odds. Our challenge now is to keep delivering our best and most honest work in the face of a culture still hell-bent on denying us both sustenance and visibility.
We've got this... Honestly, I'm excited to see what happens next.
Just to throw a little optimism into the mix: we don't really know how the art world as a whole is going to respond to Trump's reelection yet. Tina Rivers Ryan at Artforum has her view, but it's clearly a view that's backed up by far less enthusiasm among the broader population than it was at the beginning of Trump season 1.
When you see the writing on the wall years before others do and are left to watch the train barreling towards the cliff for years, helpless to stop it, it can be easy to assume that nothing will ever change, that we'll be trapped by forces beyond our control in the same ideological cage forever, but things do eventually change. It's just that it takes a long time for the bulk of people to understand failed ideologies. Some of us can see where they're going when they first start gaining steam, but most people who get caught up in these things need overwhelming evidence that *the plan obviously isn't working* thrown in their faces dramatically in order to learn.
Even though I can only assume a lot of the results of Trump's reelection aren't going to be good, his return is pretty damned obvious and dramatic evidence that identitarian social justice ideology is a dismal failure.
Of course there are plenty of people embedded in these institutions that now feel they depend upon this failed ideology, and they're going to try to hang on to it, but ultimately if they're not backed up by a critical mass of the broader population, their power will wane.
Maybe the democratic party and the art world will continue driving themselves into the ground and ignoring the collateral damage of their self destructive tendencies. I don't know. But I at least want to give things a little time before I come to any conclusions about what might or might not change.