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The Business of Art

Two small excerpts from longer pieces about whether commercialism had destroyed art or whether art is just going through its usual tumble of permutations. The first, from an essay by Mediamatic, a cultural institution in Amstedam, about an exhibit called Business Art. In the exhibit, businesses were presented as works of art presenting themselves as businesses:

"Art used trade as a medium to reinforce itself. Trade, however, uses art not as a medium, but as a product, a product that it needs to get rid of. And quick. ...The ideal merchandise is as senseless as possible. It dares consumers to indulge in their compulsion to endow all technical media with a purpose, or to extract a purpose out of all traditional media. The greater the nonsense, the more sense turns out to fit into it."

The second, from an upcoming small book called Art and Its Obstacles by Osha Neumann (also known as my father):

"The utopian promises of art have become the everyday siren calls of the supermarket shelves. ...Communications technology promies love and connection. Alcholic beverages promise glamor. The car is a woman waiting to take us for a ride; the truck a good buddy, clapping us one our backs with a brawny protective arm. ...Meanwhile, the misery of our lives continues unabated.
...

Is art in danger? Life is in danger. The commondity culture of global capitalism is omnivorous. The beast swallows us all. It makes a meal of us. We hope it chokes. We make songs as we roil about in its guts. We draw on our bodies as it consumes us for breakfast. We dance as we are excreted from its bowels. Hurray and hurrah. So may it always be."