The Critic, by Weegee (Arthur Fellig)

Ok, so dig it. You enter a gallery in a major city, and no one greets you. You spend ten minutes appreciating the art, and no one asks if you have any questions, or invites you to the next opening. Finally you get around to leaving, and no one thanks you for having come. Oh, this is brilliant public relations.

Is it any wonder that artists starve? Is it any wonder that only about 7% of all Americans buy art, while nearly 40% can afford it. Why is this? Because the majority are intimidated by galleries, and afraid of being silently mocked. They may not have the background to speak about art in an informed way. So, does this make them inferior? And do you think the car dealers darer treat them this way? It’s no wonder that so many of them own luxury cars, while so few own art.

Look, we all know snobbery is rooted in insecurity, is a reflection of unenlightened attitudes, and a form of intellectual bullying. Unfortunately this not only has a negative effect on art sales, but also discourages people from the lower ends of the economic ladder from participating. And that’s what makes my blood boil the most. What, because a kid is from the ghetto, he/she isn’t qualified to participate in the arts in the way a middle-class or rich kid is? Gimme a break.

Talent can be found anywhere: ghetto, farm, suburb, small town. It’s only a matter of cultivating it, and giving that talent a chance to flourish. It’s a matter of believing in it. This is why I structure all my major projects to be inclusive, techniques for which we’ll discuss another time.

The snobs of course will say I’m trying to lower the high standards that they maintain. Not at all. I’m trying to raise the level of accessibility, and make the arts more inclusive. This will only result in more participation, more sales, fewer starving artists, and a general spreading of sophistication. It will even make the snobs more content in the end, since we’ll invite them to the party too. Hell, I’ll even buy them all beers. Nobody’s really content living that way anyway.

I’ve always loved Weegee’s photography: gritty, real, utterly lacking in sentimentality. At the Getty last October I saw an extensive exhibit; this was before my talk in LA that night. Will never forget it. The ranting woman on the right, by the way, was a hard-drinking acquaintance of his whom he posed in the shot.