Autumn 2012

But Is It Art?

THE SOURCE: “Cash-and-Carry Aesthetics” by Jed Perl, in The Baffler, June 2012.

Jed Perl, art critic for The New Republic, is a regular gallerygoer. He finds a lot to like, but for the past few years, he and many other art lovers have felt disoriented because “the shared assumptions about the nature of art that ought to bind together our variegated experiences are nowhere to be found.” In assessing artistic value, markets have taken over the function that ideas used to have. Good art is now simply defined as art that sells. Current art scene darlings, courting popular appeal, create work that is a mishmash of contradictory images.

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