You know the cliché: “If I had a dollar every time someone told me...”
Well, for me, it’s been people telling me to dumb my art down to the lowest common denominator for near two decades now like I am the problem. That exact impulse has been the main issue in the arts for decades. As the education system shifted, you no longer had to wrestle with the masters. You could just pick and choose from an easy buffet of surface-level references—usually ending up in postmodern garbage.
I was only willing to go so far. But I still had to make a living. And since the space only supports whatever it thinks it can sell, I definitely had to take some pioneer hits.But the pressure to dumb it down? That’s 180 degrees from what I’m doing. Instead, I’m publishing the sharpest, most challenging limits of my inspired thinking—especially now, since the bar is laughably low.
@01EricWeinstein was the one who exposed the failure and dead-ends of string theory in physics. I just applied the same principle to the arts. He went on podcasts not expecting everyone to understand him—he raised the bar and invited others to rise to it. And for those it wasn’t for? Kindly move along.
I took the most blasé of forms—the neon sign in the arts—and filled it with slogans, just to show that the form was never the problem. It was always about the coward-to-brave ratio. And in a way, yes—I just dumbed it down. On purpose. In short: If you want to use the blockchain for preserving art history, make it noteworthy.
A movement cannot be curated by the scared, or the desperate. So cheers to the very few who even have the courage to consider this piece & text exists.
Work: Curated By Cowards
1/1 on Superrare Series:
”Things You Think and Believe but Can’t Say Inside the Arts"
