anti-warhol?

read in Hyperallergic about this guy suing the big five museums in NYC because they are basically a cabal with intent to continue circulating the same art and artists, not allowing anyone new or different to jump in. defended by previously cited cases.

Robert Cenedella. $100 million lawsuit claiming violation of antitrust laws. interesting, right?

the judge seemed more concerned with whether or not a museum has a right to choose “a Warhol over an Anti-Warhol,” like Cenedella. The artist’s lawyers argued that the museum should have an “identifiable, meritorious system” for selecting art, and therefore requested that the case move to the discovery phase so that they could access internal documents from places like the Met and MoMa to understand how New York’s cultural institutions determine what has value.

the museums don’t seem to be taking any of it seriously. but this does broach the question of who gets to decide what art is. we’d all agree on the da vincis, i think, but would we all agree that warhol is one of the greats? don’t know that i do.

like all norms in a civil society, we must come to terms with majority-held beliefs. what if these beliefs change and grow? we have new museums and additional shows, but the cards are stacked against an unknown.

still, it must be really nice to feel as strongly about your art’s worth as cenedella, although i’d rather make art than be arguing about it in court.