It is a marvellously droll expose of the decline of Western civilisation as expressed through the visual arts.
I loved it! And had a good laugh at some of the Duchampion inanities he exposed,e.g:
The surroundings make the objects displayed into art. If you placed a bouncing castle in one of these spaces and lit it well it would gain the same response from visitors: a quick glance as they hurry on to see what’s next.So true...much of today's art relies heavily on context to make its impact, particularly the context of a 'religious space' or a tortuous and/or largely incomprehensible, pomo jargoned 'essay' on the artworks genesis/intent.
I also enjoyed his subversion of the scatological offerings on view:
An alarm rings, and keeps on ringing. I’m not sure if it’s art, or a fire alarm. Then there is an announcement repeated over and over: “Emergency, evacuate immediately.” I wonder how they reacted in the poo room.Connors article encapsulates the decline I have witnessed as a front row viewer and participant in the visual arts for over 4 decades and his writing manages to capture the amusing vacuity at the centre of so much art made with the express desire to 'shock', and yet which fails miserably to do so given that the 21st century audience is over-exposed to so many forms of decay and disillusion. As he states, they(the artists) have lost touch with the audiences they are trying to impact.
Much of the reason for that loss goes to the success of the very social engineers so championed by these 'elites', the new 'multicultural' and 'tribalisation' experiments which have partitioned western society into enclaves many of whom demonise all the 'others', all done in the name of 'inclusivity' of course (perception over substance). This lack of 'popular' insight is reflected in the ridiculous decisions being made by members of the judiciary in sentencing criminals because these members of the 'law tribe' have also become disconnected to the populace at large. The aberrant behaviours of elite sportsmen shows a similar disconnect as does the insistence by members of the political elite to imposing crippling and insane new taxes on the wider population, the latter done in the name of 'Australia's good' of course.
Unfortunately the wider population has become so indoctrinated by these social constructs that short of a cataclysmic shift in worldview (such as a war, revival or great depression) history appears to support the perspective that society will continue along the same path until the civilisation collapses.
I am re-reading Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's 1984 (amongst others) to gain some perpsective of what the future may hold and it frightens me.
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