WNYC

January 15, 2013

Ben Davis doesn’t want to write another piece about the poisonous art market, but he believes it’s his responsibility, so he’s doing it. We’re glad he did. He singles out the big three that are ruining art for everybody: unsustainable contradictions (often, artists making wink art about money) inequality, and terrible people. “…personally, I feel that art is too important to become PR for tycoons,” he writes, “no matter how much they want to pay to make it so.” Amen, brother. [ARTinfo]
That Davis quote reminds us of a Bob Nickas quote tweeted by Karen Archey over the weekend. “Wealthy and powerful people—and boring people, and famous people—use art and artists to legitimize themselves.” [VICE]
18 human heads found in box at the airport, only Gawker seems to notice that that’s weird. [Gawker]
Painting needs some categories in order to go anywhere, so writer Richard Kalina has made some. Basically, they are “mimetic” and “abstract.” [Brooklyn Rail]
Remember when the Armory show was a shocking event? Neither do we, but this WNYC episode describes how the art there once helped the plunge into “absolute chaos and nightmare.” [WNYC]
Erin Kissane does a good job of explaining why the Atlantic was wrong to run a sponsored article for Scientology. [Incisive.nu]
Facebook just announced the new “graph search” feature that answers Facebook-specific questions like “restaurants my friends have been to” and “photos I’ve liked.” [CBS]

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Tuesday Links: Writers Explain Why Everyone Else is Wrong