COMMENTARY: Art, Commerce and the American Way of Life

The work of Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons always leaves me feeling nothing and thinking only about money; to me, they’re not artists, they’re in the commodity trading business.

Last night, Robert and I watched a Netflix documentary — “Blurred Lines: Inside the Art World” — that makes this assertion more thoughtfully than I. In part, the film highlights the roles of the various players involved in today’s Art-Commerce Industrial Complex: artists, gallery owners, collectors, art consultants (who knew they even existed?!), auctioneers, journalists, museum operators, and so on.

The film also triggered bigger thoughts for me beyond what this all means for “art.” It left me pondering what this implies for civilization, given we’re living in a time, in a society, when celebrity trumps values (pun definitely intended), when the quest for money leads largely to red-hot greed for even more money, when the political “system” is thoroughly corrupt (thanks, again, to Big Money and the venal characters of so very many politicians), when justice even at the highest levels is crippled with fundamental dishonesty (e.g., Gorsuch), when journalism has become super sensationalized, when opportunity has lost to inequity, when religion is rife with hypocrisy, when technology is fueling major societal change.

We don’t fully understand this massive, revolutionary upheaval because we’re in the midst of it. It started to overheat decades ago; it’s unclear how much longer the waters of disruption will boil.

And still, I remain optimistic. Why? Because the confusion and fear generated by such tectonic shifts only make people more like themselves. Crooks become more crooked. Clowns become more clownish. Crackpots become nuttier. People defined and driven by fear become more fear-filled and fearful. And optimists, like me, become even more optimistic. We all double-down on what we know. It’s how humans cope.

My advice? Fasten your seatbelt. This roller-coaster still has a long way to go.