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Just a few years ago, the art market was symbolically annihilated by Damien Hirst. With all the brilliance of a Goldman-Sachs scheme, Hirst got the market in such a stir over his stupendously expensive diamond skull For the Love of God Since then, the decline of the art market has been discussed in the press, and structural changes have obliterated thousands of workplaces. The fact that Occupy Wall Street quickly took on Sotheby's as a secondary target is another indication of collapse. Simultaneously, a fountain of creativity has erupted in the digital realm. If you are connected to critically aware people in the social networks, you will have noticed this - recontextualized and appropriated images and quotations, photo-based intermedia, video, many text-based works of brilliance, all of them shared over social networks to inspire further the revelatory big bang that is blossoming in the hive mind. Perhaps the death of the art market has freed art. _____ |
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At some stages of what we call civilization, this accelerating game of technical superiority and dominance, there are unforeseen dimensions to the new opportunities provided by developing platforms. Some are more significant than others, and like the printing press, the internet with its open-ended connectivity and seepage of suppressed information has set a reformation(1) in motion. The explosion of revelatory visual communication that inspires this show derives in part from the blogosphere - the websites and independent news sources that have facilitated open discussions and a free exchange of information. Thanks to the fact that in the relative anonymity of the net millions have rediscovered the value of freely discussing the most vital topics, the deadly and dehumanizing influences of our industrial culture are finally being more widely recognized for what they are. Political correctness, a group dynamic that excludes dissenting perspectives, has not proved nearly as effective at stifling debate online as off. This alone is liberating, and the anonymous works pouring forth contain much exuberant and profound intelligence. The digital realm has not only distracted us from the world, it has also become a mirror in which our world is reflected and discussed; a contentious simulacrum, distorted by filter bubbles, smeared by the media, attacked by senators, but still proliferating, reverberating with the thrill of unfolding potential, and home to rhizomatic lifeforms like the hacker group Anonymous, who have contributed much to the year 2011. A phenomenon such as Anonymous resists categorization by its very nature, so one can only address partial aspects of it. In one such aspect, it is a contemporary Bocca della Verita
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fontaine began in a conversation with Galerie la Petite Mort |
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