The Axe Will Survive the Master

I don’t know if you’ve noticed but our world isn’t doing so well. Even as there still is endless denial by fossil-fuel corporations and the politicians they’ve bought climate change has started to wreak havoc. In addition, in many places of the world freedom is retreating (the actual freedom, not the selective one that depends on who claims it). It is becoming increasingly obvious that while democracy needs capitalism in a carefully tempered way to succeed, capitalism — especially not the rampant neoliberal one we have to live under — does not need democracy to succeed. The world of art is largely the most impotent part of all of this. Oligarchs and plutocrats spend some of their money in order to decorate their homes and to elevate what their images (see the so-called Met Gala). But commercial aspects aside, art has no bearing on the world at large. That, and I would argue only that, is what makes it so precious in this world. People make or look at art because it lifts them up…