(Man Ray, Gift, iron with nails, 1921)

“Works of art, in my opinion, are the only objects in the material universe to possess internal order, and that is why, though I don’t believe that only art matters, I do believe in Art for Art’s sake.” (E. M. Forster)

Art for Art’s sake, my head on your take, I sometimes wonder if we are all in fact fake.

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“Every work of art is an uncommitted crime.” (Theodor Adorno)

I don’t think it is true anymore because art is too glossy and commercial in our time, doesn’t stem from a release from the strictures of modern living, stems from $_$, isn’t an uprising against society, is narcissistic.

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“The more horrifying this world becomes, the more art becomes abstract.” (Ellen Key)

Today’s Boxing Match schedule. In the ring:

Man Ray’s Gift

VS

Tracey Emin’s unmade bed

Duchamp’s bicycle wheel

VS

Richard Prince framed photographs of cigarette advertisements

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“Art is either plagiarism or revolution.” (Paul Gauguin)

Isn’t it pretty obvious now then? No lies.

Remember when I got all weepy and said, I don’t think revolutions really happen anymore and I think –isms are empty, we’re just using them to justify our actions, to make the things we do more interesting? I wonder what it was like in the past, maybe I’m just being foolish, but it seems to me even when they were pretentious they were pure.

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“Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad.” (Salvador Dali)

They stopped drawing. Now everyone can lay claim to being an artist.

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“An artist is somebody who produces things that people don’t need to have.” (Andy Warhol)

Some things can’t be framed. And some people can’t be blamed. The famed inflamed.

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“Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves that they have a better idea.” (John Ciardi)

A hundred years ago, sure, you could call painting naked women art. But not in today’s time and age. Any man who does that now is exploiting women. It almost makes me angry. Art should say something about culture, about its time.

That’s sweet.

How do you mean?

I mean you respect the female form enough to want to adore it in and of itself, not to make use of it in an empty way. And that’s just—plainly lazy.

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“An artist is always alone – if he is an artist. No, what the artist needs is loneliness.” (Henry Miller)

I’m not interested in romance anymore. I’m interested in my work. With romance after while you always feel like you are making the same mistakes, but with art you are in control. You can create. The clean slate.

And these erotic sketches, they’re better than sex—what do you get at the end of that, stained sheets?

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“We have art in order not to die of the truth.” (Friedrich Nietzsche)

I used to date ugly men who had things to say, who made things with their hands.

They wrote me mad poems, we sparred intellectually.

They had ideals. They invented things.

When they took found objects, they were redefining the acts of creation and perception in my name. You, my handsome 21st century squeeze, you are merely being lazy. But you’re so glossy, you make me so shiny, you talk so much trash, that the world buys your take on me.

I need to live so that you may not die. But I miss the lovers I used to have.