I normally don’t have much to say about other artists and what goes on in the art world. But today I will rant!  Much of what passes for ‘art’ is not really judged on any sort of artistic merit…ie it’s not kosher to say if something is good or bad art…instead, it’s clever, insightful, shocking, profound. But you can’t call it bad or good, because if you do then you are a schmuck . But I call bs on that because if you take, say, a painting or sculpture and put it in a garage sale, without signatures, plaques, curators or salesmen, then it has to talk all by itself. Put that painting right in between the stack of dusty harlequin romance novels and a broken tricycle and see how it holds up.  Will anyone passing by see its worth?  Will people say "Holy cow look at that fine painting! What’s it doing in a garage sale? I must have it now!" No, it’s more likely that passerby’s  will not look twice because they don’t trust their own intuition nowadays. But for the ones who do have some taste, will they respond to the painting or sculpture? Determining if its art is not important…does it just work on its own? Does it excite the eye and the mind?

I’ve seen tons of stuff in art museums that would never pass this test if they didn’t have signatures on them. I am quite positive that the vast majority of conceptual ‘art’ is only recognized as such because the galleries and critics call it that… They have the magic wand. As a matter of fact, they have the power to go down to any old garage sale, pull out some junk, put it in their gallery, and voila…art. But this is my whole point: calling something "art" is the problem here. If we forget the definitions then we can come out of this sinkhole. Maybe we could start asking, "what is good, what is great, what is universal, what moves us",etc…not " how low can we go, let’s shock, let get esoteric, we are art gods" art should be universal, not cater to the establishment.