"The art market is being infiltrated by the petro dollars

This is driving prices out of sight and creating a false market. The artists are screened via their countries of origin, religions, and many are not allowed to show at the Dubai Art Fair. I wonder where all the stolen masters are going with prices being in the hundreds of millions?"

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If you want to give the Yale art undergraduates an earful, here's their blog:

http://dimensionsart.blogspot.com/

"Be it a question of science, metaphysics, or religion, the man who says: 'What is truth?' as Pilate did, is not a tolerant man, but a betrayer of the human race."-Jacques Maritain

A work of art is ultimately a self-portrait of the artist, regardless if he or she is aware of it or not. Which tells us that apart from individuals who've developed a self worth expressing and so art worth creating, there are far too many 'artists' who bring into the world work that adds no individual insight about life or the world we live in, as if they're reporters who hold facts above truth, or who otherwise give form to their neuroses. Art is important, regardless if many artists don't think their own art is.
BTW, congratulations on your regular column in The New Individualist, Michael. The magazine instantly got even better. Looking forward to all of your future insights.

http://fawstin.blogspot.com/

I was actually going to post up something on this before Mr. Newberry beat me to it. This is such an act of moral, spiritual and aesthetic bankrupcy that even the usual gang of idiots over here is a little mortified.

As usual, the idiocy in question is that anything shoved into a display space with a manifesto attached is "art," if enough boobs (cf. Arthur C. Danto) can be strongarmed into admitting that it is canonical.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/philosopherszone/stories/2006/1580766.htm

What these Derriere-gardeists run into is the fact that this is all old hat. Even before the Dadaists and Surrealists had their innings in the 1910's-20's, the Incoherents were befuddling the French with altered Mona Lisas and all black paintings entitled "Negroes Fighting in a Cellar at Night" in the 1880's. Here are some examples of the work of the most famous member of the school, Emile Cohl:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEAObel8yIE

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Emile+Cohl&search_type=

The difference between these precursors and wowsers like Shvarts is that the former had the moral courage to take responsibility for their outrages and most had some modicum of talent. They also reached the limit beyond which one cannot go a long time ago, thus the modern "performance art" movement is just a bunch of derivative epigones with no true originality of their own. Our little besharnied girl is as prime an example of a Comprachico of mis-education as you'll find.

"Be it a question of science, metaphysics, or religion, the man who says: 'What is truth?' as Pilate did, is not a tolerant man, but a betrayer of the human race."-Jacques Maritain

Ash and I with our mouths closed. How rare is that?! That was the day of the night she got the boy. I have to admit, seeing us both side by side in profile like that, she is the prettier.

Perhaps American relativism started with art, art is responding to it, or they are both feeding off each-other to the point where we see no clear beginning.  Whatever the cause, the result is disgusting and disheartening. 

Landon and Lance,
Thanks for your replies. I think that there needs to be two primary ingredients to make change, one is to know better, to understand the gamut of ideas involved, and have better alternatives. The other is action.
After completing Venus, I have been cleaning up some of my past projects, one of which was the conference I created for exactly this purpose in 2003.
I raised about $30,000, got some great assistance from Brett Holverstott and Lisa Thorne, and we created a non-profit, setup the conference, and made sure that it was well documented on DVD.
You can go here to read more about it: http://michaelnewberry.com/av/2003con/2003con.html
You might also recognize one or two people in the photo of the audience.

www.michaelnewberry.com

We have to take back the Arts. It is absolutely critical to our culture that we do so.

And that, my friends, includes music, where Objectivists tend to be part of the problem rather than the solution. My major rant on this is nearly complete.

The timing of your post of this is very coincidental. I have a friend who is into post-modern nihilist "art" including performance art and industrial "music"

such as

This

This

And This

He's also into animal rights and he sent out an e-mail about an "artist" whose entire exhibit at his museum showing was a room where a dog was tied by a rope into a corner until he starved to death over the course of several days. I was tempted to respond that his "art" is what made something like this possible but I didn't.

I just don't know what to say about any of this. And you're right. We are in more trouble from within than anything on the outside.

---Landon

Never mistake contempt for compassion, or power lust for ambition.

http://www.myspace.com/wickedlakes

What if art plays a major role in the health, flourishing, and spirit of country or a culture?

It does. We have to take back the Arts. It is absolutely critical to our culture that we do so.

"Callum,

That is not quite correct. Artists may, in part, or not work with ideas. If you are using "ideas" in the sense of written or clearly formulated concepts. Artists/musicians may "think" in space, color, image, sound, movement and might never come around to naming those concepts in words."

True, but they're still ideas in the fact that they've been conceived. Words are man's means of communication; but he doesn't have to think in words to have a concept/idea. Ideas, as you've shown, can transcend those barriers.

"Socialism may be dead, but its corpse is still rotting up the place." -Ayn Rand

"Ideas determine EVERYTHING man-made, because they're the products of
man's rational faculty before those ideas put into existence, usually
in the form of producing something. Nothing man-made exists without
someone having conceived of it beforehand."

Callum,

That is not quite correct. Artists may, in part, or not work with ideas. If you are using "ideas" in the sense of written or clearly formulated concepts. Artists/musicians may "think" in space, color, image, sound, movement and might never come around to naming those concepts in words.

And they may also begin with a vague visual/musical concept, but more often then not the work developes as problems arise.

Leonid,

Delighted we see eye to eye.

Michael

www.michaelnewberry.com

Leonid, it's those ideas that determine whether those explosives exist or not, and if so, how they're used, whether productive (aka, blowing up an abandoned skyscraper to make room for more productive uses of land) or counterproductive (aka, Islamic terrorists). Ideas determine EVERYTHING man-made, because they're the products of man's rational faculty before those ideas put into existence, usually in the form of producing something. Nothing man-made exists without someone having conceived of it beforehand.

"Socialism may be dead, but its corpse is still rotting up the place." -Ayn Rand

"What if art plays a major role in the health, flourishing, and spirit of country or a culture? If that is so, aren't we more in trouble from the inside than the outside?"

Yes, very much so. Art is comprehensive view on the existence in perceptual form and ideas are much more powerful then explosives of Islamic terrorists.