"More frightened than bigoted": Trumpism dominated by trade, not race

[L_Mariachi]

You may be overstating Hirst’s importance. I had that “giant spin art” idea when I was 12 at one of those amusement park rides where centripetal force sticks you to the wall, but being a kid I couldn’t get the operators to let me lay down a canvas and get paint all over their thing. His vitrines are cheap shock for people who have never been on a farm. His diamond-encrusted skulls might as well be logos for Trump’s presidential campaign.

Damien Hirst sucks. His gimmicky brand of post-post-modern meta-art makes the world harder for all the artists who are trying to convey something other than WHAT IS ART ANYWAY? At least Warhol was bringing up nominally new questions instead of rehashing Dada for fun and profit.

Don’t even get me started on Richard Prince or Terry Richardson. Or whatsisname, that asshole that has a sweatshop full of art students making his crappy paintings for him. I forget his name and I’m not looking it up.

[tlwest]

I’ve long understood that “winners” and “people/products with qualities that I like” are essentially orthogonal. Not a negative correlation, just no correlation at all.

Kind of a pity, because humans being social animals, there’s significant extra happiness in being able to enjoy something along with a large crowd of people enjoying the same thing.

That said, I’m a peon who cannot distinguish between Hirst’s art and the output of an imaginative, but self-absorbed 10-year old. However, in fairness, I’m willing to believe it’s a lack of education or artistic instinct in me.

Also, I’d be reluctant to conflate being a “winner” with “importance” (as measured by almost any scale outside of immediate financial gain).