I see no actual difference in this exhibit (and of course I’m not a fan, but neither am I a fan of art museums becoming first, art history museums solely obsessed with the numbers of people who enter them, but not if any of them actually have a deep love of the visual world, and second now being filled with contemporary conceptual art that really isn’t art. And there’s nothing perjorative about the fact that it’s not art-lots of things are different than art, ie. fire hydrants, computer printers, great books of philosophy, etc . . . , it just happens to be different than art, having nothing in common with the 40,000 year history, which was always primarily about the sense of beauty, of art besides that it also happens to be visual. And you will have no problem getting most conceptual artists to admit this, ie. that the things they make have little to do with art before Duchamp- who was really just one of the first visual art critics- and that their work has nothing to do with beauty, that is, that it doesn’t belong in an art museum or that these conceptual artists have commandeered a space that doesn’t belong to them. Why? Why would anyone want to commandeer a space that doesn’t belong to them? Because you can’t make money if it isn’t “art.” It is the label that’s important. Why? Precisely because our society sees art, as it sees almost all things, as a commodity, as a market good.)

So I see no real difference between this exhibit (as it’s just another logical outcome) and the gallery system, filled with art galleries which are basically just idea scrapyards and junkheaps. There you have a few incredibly rich people determining what is worth showing in a gallery, because galleries ultimately don’t survive if they don’t make money, because the primary goal of most galleries, no matter what the owner has convinced himself, are both money and prestige. And if the artist doesn’t sell or procure some sort of capital (and spectacle are notoriety are types of capitol in this world) they don’t get to show, no matter how good their work is. It’s a system where ultimately the artist is expendable (which is why with only a few exceptions-Kiefer, Kentridge, and the few others like them, artists haven’t been successful but business men like Damien Hirst, who himself has a certain genius.) After all, there are so many people willing to call themselves an artist. No, the people with agency in the “art world” are the super rich, the gallery owner, not more than a middle man.

So this show is sort of gross, but it should be expected. If we accept art as a commodity to be bought and sold in auctions, then we must accept this as well. It was only a matter of time. This is what happens to a museum when the total number of people who you can get to pay entry is more important than that be deeply interested in the collection that has always hung on the walls. Ultimately, you change what hangs on the walls to a spectacle, to not more than will gather you notoriety and thus a crowd.