completely out of context
At a recent art world dinner [MoMA Curator Klaus] Biesenbach mentioned to me that he’d crossed paths with Lady Gaga, who said that she felt she was a performance artist — or an artist of some sort. Biesenbach responded that she was not, and reportedly she was a bit taken aback and stunned at his reply. Biesenbach didn’t exactly detail as to why in fact she wasn’t an artist, but by way of a sort of explanation he related that Susan Sontag had pronounced to him, “All we have is our opinion.” We must be referring to cultural critics like herself and other curators. Well, her opinions were always backed up by extremely well-written and thought through arguments, and Biesenbachs’s opinions now carry the weight of MoMA — so while some opinions are qualified, some have more resonance and repercussions than others. On the interweb everyone has an opinion, but most of it doesn’t matter. There’s no pretence of equal opportunity or democracy in the art world — which is probably fine. Komar and Melamid did “democratic” art as a kind of ironic exercise, and from their example I can say we seriously don’t want Wiki culture.
Just one quotable graf of many from David Byrne’s long post on art and context. Worth reading in full.