Re: art world in crisis!
On Jan 30, 2007, at 12:44 PM, Charles A. Grimes wrote:
Where’s the problem?
Jed Perl is an old-fashioned high-culture snob. The crossover of art
into the broader popular culture makes him visibly sick to his
stomach. I ran into him on the subway as he was heading home from
having just seen the Sensation show at the Brooklyn Museum
a look on his face like he was just forced to stare at a cauldron of
rotting body parts floating in a marinade of feces. Jed wrote for The
New Criterion in its early days (and may still do so - I haven’t seen
a copy in ages). He didn’t share their politics - he’s a liberal Dem
- but he did share a problem they had, which is that they hate the
cultural products of American capitalism but they don’t really have a
structural problem with capitalism itself. Jed finds my politics
oddly extreme - but on the other hand, I have a lot fewer problems
with the culture produced by American capitalism than he does. Oh the
contradictions.
Doug