HisHalfElf Aaron Bolton
Art Movements always result in insiders clubs. So-called "lowbrow" is a clique of morbid heterosexual chauvinistic fetish masturbation. Lowbrow is another expression of "highbrow", not it's polar opposite. Lowbrow artists sneer at outsiders just as highbrow artists sneer at outsiders. Both are elitist. All of these institutions are commercial enterprises sucking the dick of a corporate model which is anti-art. True lowbrow would have no definable aesthetic. These institutions are getting people hooked on symbols. You're addicted to symbols. And you pay out the nose to have art with lowbrow symbols in it. Little girls with big heads, human centipede, nauseating toon shit. If you want to sell work as a "psychedelic artist", the current movements demand that you have artwork overflowing with eyeballs. Gotta have the eyes. Gotta be Alex Grey wannabes. And especially gotta have morbidity, whatever kind of art you make. There is nothing transcendental about regurgitating eyeball symbols. Morbidity happens but it doesn't need to be a prerequisite. There should be no aesthetic prerequisites. Just as people are judged by the qualitative degree of their character, so should their art be judged by the qualitative degree of the creative expression, right? Aesthetic prejudice. Symbol prejudice. Symbol elitism. Fuck the clique. Lowbrow philosophy is sick. Stop holding up hollow archetypal idols. Galleries, websites, publications, etc. want us to hold up those idols and they want us to pay to be holding up those idols. But we don't have to do that. Don't want to do that.
The propagation of these movements should be rejected just as any other exclusive clique bullshit is rejected. Don't tailor your art to a movement. Don't buy into movements. Don't let anybody tell you what to like, what to support, or who to make your art for. Instead, invest in art that you enjoy for its qualitative resonance with you. Invest in individual artists because you like what they do. There IS enough to go around. The consensus artist shouldn't hold the dollar symbol in the back of its mind, dictating, however subtly, the direction of the work.
Fuck art schools too. "Get money" is the root operating system of all of these institutions.
Note: I'm not tearing down any particular artist or individual associated with the movements and institutions described in this article. In fact, I take great inspiration from at least two artists often linked to "lowbrow". It's the philosophy that's sick. Runaway capitalist corporate wannabe fetish philosophy and the institutions acting on that philosophy by propagating movements they invented. Don't put the cart before the horse.
