The Painted Word: Wolfe, Tom: 8601300194813: Amazon.com: Books
I forget how I got to this little book (112 pages) but I had the most fun you legally reading the Tom Wolfe deconstructing the snobbery behind Modern Art. In modern blog terms, he fisks the living daylights of of sacred “artiste” crowds with the snark of the gods.
“First you do everything possible to make sure your world is antibourgeois, that it defies bourgeois tastes, that it mystifies the mob, the public, that it outdistances the insensible middle-class multitudes by light-years of subtlety and intellect—and then, having succeeded admirably, you ask with a sense of See-what-I-mean? outrage: look, they don’t even buy our products! (Usually referred to as “quality art.”)”
― Tom Wolfe, The Painted Word
It is glorious.
Outstanding find! When Wolfe wrote magazine articles in NYC in the ’60s, he wrote a scathing piece about the Modern Art world. That piece was published in a book that was an anthology of his articles, which I had (and lost) maybe 40 years ago. That was an “Aha!” moment for me, as I realized that I was not an ignoramus for believing that modern art was bullshit.
I just read the excerpt at the Amazon site, and now I know I’m gonna buy it!
Thanks for the find!
Seeing all the “modern art” at places/events like Art Basel when I lived down in Miami made me think it was all a front for laundering drug money.
If you’re paying $120k for a banana duct taped to a wall (over a sensible investment like, say, a Porsche 911 GT3 or transferable M2HB) then cocaine has to be involved somehow.
Of course one should also accompany that with “From Bauhaus to Our House”, “Radical Chic” and “Mau-mauing the Flack Catchers”.
Mr. Wolfe had a great eye for culture, and was one of the best reporters of the 20th century.