The biggest problem with much art these days is that it is either form or thought or identity. Most of the product that would fall in any of these camps is indulged with a lot of rhetoric. This baggage is basically just excuse-making. There is an excuse as to why the art is so shitty – it is some rhetoric as to why the art has barely mustered up enough of one (and only one) element and can rationalize stopping there.
I am not saying this problem needs to be addressed. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think that this problem may in fact be a solution.
There is a glut of people calling themselves artists. Other than spitting in their faces, slugging them in the stomach and then taking all of their parents’ money away, there might not be any way to get rid of them quickly. But the solution might be to let them believe that this embryonic piss they are creating is of a caliber of quality approximating that achieved by the masterpieces of our time. Believing this, these deluded narcissistic assclowns can wander aimlessly in the art world – populating the openings, funding the schools, shaking hands, smiling, buying museum memberships and going to seminars – until they just disappear.
Sure, on occasion, one of these thoroughly talentless anti-visionaries will get a show, maybe even a good review by a sleepwalking art writer and will seemingly be in a position that appears to be rising up through the ranks into that magic art world stratosphere we all seem to understand as an adult high school popularity contest. And that glimmer of possibility keeps the hack-one-liners going.
FORM. The rhetoric cannot hide the fact that no matter how well they have mastered the formal elements, they haven’t done diddly squat with those elements and are likely too timid to ever DO anything with them.
THOUGHT. There are “purity” junkies in every field, from architecture to religion and art is no exception. Your intentions aren’t shit. You can come up with convoluted analytics and propositions all day and all night but until you at least fetishize your ideas, they are not art. And you likely have to do something with them even after doing that.
IDENTITY. Nobody will understand (or care about) your art if it is so steeped in specific issues that it ceases to become art and becomes a platter upon which those issues are served. If you don’t care about that, understand how insignificant your efforts are. You probably cannot as you have no developmental consciousness beyond three paragraphs laughably superficial rhetoric about yourself (because you are inherently self-centered).