Lessons From The Whitney Biennial Debacle

Andrea Scott: “Of course, the major power dynamic at play in this story is the one between art and money. For too long, patronage of the arts has come with patronizing attitudes toward artists—that they should be grateful for funding, no matter its source. The obscenely inflated contemporary art market—whose metrics are based on auction results, from which artists don’t see a penny—has created the impression of art as a playground for the wealthy. But the delusion that art is an oasis in which beauty is truth and politics are irrelevant is more risible than it ever has been. Art isn’t made in a vacuum, and neither is money.” – The New Yorker