We Need a New Word for Art

In the 70's to the 90's, I considered myself an "artist". Occasionally, I would overhear complaints that art was degenerate. Eventually, unhappy with the lifestyle, I left the world of art. Happily, I discovered "coaching", which is far more fulfilling!

Since then, I've grown increasingly disinterested in the art world. It seems to have little to say or add to my life.

Today, I got an email plea to sign a petition to prevent an "artist" from starving a dog to death as part of a gallery show. The email stated that the "art" had already been presented before, with the medium, a stray dog that was tied-up in a gallery without food or water until it died. Even though the email contained several convincing pics of an emaciated dog with well-dressed patrons sympathetically looking on, I checked www.snopes.com to see if it was real.

Snopes calls this story, "Undetermined", because those connected with the show now claim the dog was well-fed at night, but ran away. Sounds like, "We lied before, but let's see if you're dumb enough to believe us now." Either way, they're lying.

Degenerate doesn't describe it. Pathetic? Depraved? Sociopathic?

Whatever it is, today, I'm done with "art".

I still have friends who do beautiful work, but if I were them, I don't think I'd want to be associated with much that passes for art. These are creative people, why not call what they do something else? (I'm half-serious, here) For me today, Too-crappy-to-care-about sums it up. Sorry!

I admit to indulging in a fantasy of Tony Soprano (a fellow animal lover) getting his mitts on this guy. Funny, how one act of cruelty makes us want to be a little cruel, too. All the more reason to ignore.

Remembering something about how the art world works, I suspect the artist and gallery owners were cynically hoping the notoriety they got from this would ultimately make them rich and famous. "All press is good press." But who they are is irrelevant.

Please do sign the petition here. Then go shake off the crappy energy of this story by doing something good for an animal.