Art and the Economy

The big question the Cubists asked at the turn of the last century: why hang pictures on a wall?

The answer: to be able to make more pictures.

There were then, as there are now, walls everywhere, walls, walls, and more walls. And walls need pictures. Art was then, as it is now, very close to a supply and demand proposition, even more so.

I’m so amused by people who mock socialism or who think they score points politically or socially by mocking socialism as being unrealistic or impractical, or accusing someone of being a socialist, when it’s actually capitalism that’s impractical, capitalism being based on the expectation that more and more paintings can be made and therefore more walls that need to be created.

Now that I’ve been making paintings, I paint with the intention that any virtue the painting might have might be covered up so that it can again be uncovered and perhaps become a real painting.

Georg Braque, that superlative Cubist: “the only valuable thing in art is the thing that can’t be explained.”

“Pickleball”, painting on painting (in progress), 24” x 24” & 8” X 10”, acrylic, oil, felt tip pen. 2023.