represent

Don’t hold back, Slate . . . give it to us straight . . .

“Freud said the goals of the artist are fame, money, and beautiful lovers. Based on my artist acquaintances, I would say this holds true today. What have changed, however, are the goals of the art itself. Do any exist?

“How did the art world become such a vapid hell-hole of investment-crazed pretentiousness? How did it become, as Camille Paglia has recently described it, a place where ‘too many artists have lost touch with the general audience and have retreated to an airless echo chamber’?”

Why the art world is so loathesome. Eight theories from Slate: MORE