One thinks of Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon with their paint
brushes. They have more in common with stable
boys than aristocrats, but are much more likely
to be called “milord” and greeted with applause
than some eccentric landowner with a six-car garage.
Artists accomplished that, not the French Revolution.
Madame Bovary lives. “Je suis Charlie.” That’s
Charlie Parker, Charlie Hebdo, perhaps even the drunken
Bukowski who appears in Sean Penn’s dreams.
Perhaps someone will invent a new poetry of thought.
Even the Chinese value Rothko. Hitler knew not to bomb Paris.
American pilots steered clear of Kyoto— and it wasn’t to save gas.
The world was shocked by the Baghdad Museum abandoned but
not by the bombing of Iraqis. Today, we can incinerate locals,
but one mustn’t abandon the Titians, Constables, or Turners.
J. Paul Getty valued Fabergé Eggs, not his grandson’s ears.
Art is life. Elvis’s shorts lie beneath protective glass guarded
by the county sheriff. His landlord’s underwear was donated
to a local charity.
Get out there and claim your hole! Put a circle around it;
name it. Learn to embrace the Eugene O’Neill school
of amplitude. Art is about making something from nothing.
It’s not enough to say muhrthrfuckr, even if it is in 3-D. It is
not sufficient to think we are all tormented; art is more than
a sum of its execrations. Art can be like an elephant turd:
impressive. An expressway is not a work of art, and don’t let
anyone tell you otherwise. Art should not be confused with
the invention of arson. Artists are nobodies, not has-beens.
They belong to tomorrow and forever