THE KILLING OF ART...

Brilliant exposé on Channel 4 last night: The Mona Lisa Curse. Veteran art critic Robert Hughes said it all. Contrary to the rumours I have been trying to spread for some time, nobody is going to smell a rat. Nor will the jig be up. I'm bound to say the problem absolutely baffled me. But I can see my mistake and understand what I totally failed to grasp: Art is a commodity admired only for its pricetag.

As Jeffrey Archer blithely observed: “There are dealers holding Hirst works in their galleries that they can't afford to see drop to record lows, and therefore decide to join the bidding.”

Ultimately responsible for these encroachments, then, and prepared to justify them at all cost, is that dark, hidden bureaucracy of profit, which comprises the art establishment. Here is the dissemination, through myriad
channels of information based on very specific deception themes, some of which
are colluded in by the artist himself. In the biggest unregulated market in the
world this scam is pursued with precision and bureaucratic thoroughness. It
comes in high places and extreme forms. The dealer’s s' approach to profit
mirrors Cecil B. de Mille’s entertaining spectacle of the Hollywood blockbuster,
where the cost of the production becomes part of its commercial attraction. But
whereas the art establishment’s great skill has been to convince the buyers they
are being done an enormous service by being allowed to acquire the work, this
does not mean the introduction to humanity of great works of art, but the
diminution of the artistic faculties, the forfeiture of judgement, the loss of
aesthetic reflection, of genuine artistic genius and imaginative appreciation.

The hypocrisy is so perfect it's almost delinquent.

No moral principle guides the actions of an industry which is
anatomically separated from the rest of our economic culture. In contrast with
the elaborate rituals of the international banking system, the art business is a
relatively simple financial instrument of the sort used by Nick Leeson, the
rogue trader who brought down Barings bank in 1995. You actually bet on a
profitable future, rather than on derivatives, which are so called precisely
because their value is derived from that of an underlying asset.

I am at a loss what to say.

It is almost as if the sheer effrontery has drained my capacity for
reflection. While there is no accountability because there is no criterion,
artists, in our time, are nevertheless the bastard offspring of Arts Councils
founded by chunks of public money. Indeed, no other profession has been so
copiously blessed. And yet, its very principle is negative. Stop all art
subsidies, is what I would suggest. And I am very clear on this. I have a vivid and
I think certainly no false grievance: Give art back her innocence, I say...

Dreamy