APPC

“Torrid inflow of money from Russia and Middle East slows to trickle; remaining buyers get conservative.”

towerofsleep:

blownspeakers:

Attempting to measure the worth of a rock band by their cultural stature or “artistic worth” (or lack there of), however, is the kind of thing that betrays the sort of visceral joy that makes music worth listening to in the first place (not that I’d expect anything less from a blogger that uses the term “rockist” with a straight face). These sort of things always seem to be written by the type of people who stand in the back of shows with their arms crossed, cradling a Stella (bottle, never draft beer!), while the rest of the room is crammed at the front, drunk and sweaty.

Indeed, and as anyone who’s seen me dance will attest, I’d rather be the latter type. I don’t want to associate myself too closely with k-punk, as much as I enjoy his writing, because I am definitely not advocating for the kind of extremist, never-any-compromise kind of taste he endorses (and his taste has plenty of contradictions anyway). But I do think that, even if I don’t want to be the one doing it, culture always needs some totally committed dissidents making the right challenges in the right places, and the main part of his beef with Sonic Youth is that their mystique and a large part of how they’re supposed to work on you comes from the presupposition that they’re more than just a rock band, that they are those dissidents, when in fact they aren’t, they just offer a meta-version of what it’s like to want that, and their institutionalization may actually be preventing the genesis of something that actually is more radical. I get some schadenfreude out of his ultraviolent takedown of a band that a lot of people consider beyond reproach. I’d add, though, that his insistence on austerity and extremism is also a problem that buys into the same aesthetic of “serious and important radical experimental culture”. I’d prefer to think that the liberating, engaging, genuinely progressive thing we need now (whatever it is) might turn out to be more fun and open and resistant to humourless snobbery. Also, I haven’t heard The Eternal. Who knows, maybe it’s a blast. Stranger things have happened.

Ah, fuck both of you. And k-punk, too.

“On the eve of another art auction season staged against a backdrop of chaotic global financial markets, the days of the $300 million dollar sale are over, at least for now.”

“When Sotheby’s puts a seven-foot-wide magenta and turquoise Jeff Koons sculpture of an Easter egg on the block in New York May 12, will the international auction house wind up with egg on its face?”

“During good times, an auction is the obvious choice for any collector wanting to sell a work of art. But as the recession takes its toll, many have changed strategies.”

“In the first quarter, only three pieces of contemporary art sold for over $1 million each, a drop of 92% from the year-ago period, according to Artprice, a provider of art-market information and which has tracked price and confidence data since to 1998. The number of unsold contemporary works at auctions hit a high of 40% in the first quarter.”

“Chinese contemporary painters hope the collapse will shake out speculators, leaving true collectors.”