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The problem isn't a shortage of money. I think that the real problem, at least in terms of the sort of artwork you hang on walls, is that for the last fifty to seventy-five years, the art world became pretentious and self-indulgent, deliberately scorning the patrons. You can't produce garbage, hang it on the walls, tell everyone how wonderful it is, and that they're idiots if they disagree. If they had set out deliberately to destroy the whole concept of art (and some did, like the guy who hung the urinal on the wall), they couldn't have succeeded any more thoroughly. Ordinary people don't trust art or artists, and I don't blame them a bit.

I have a favorite fantasy: someday, all of the museum curators are going to have a GIANT garage sale of 20th century garbage-- they'll call it the "What Were We Thinking?" sale. Then they'll take the proceeds from the sale, all $200 or so of it, and maybe buy a little something beautiful.

Well said.

For me I think "art" has been hijacked by people with no talent. I have no problem with art asking questions or having a message but I think alot of it is lost in translation. For example, in 30 years where will a jar of piss and a cross dunked in it be? One may say it will be kept and displayed as an example of the lowest point the arts reached where the shock value was far more important then the artistic value. Even then it will be recognized as a jar of piss with a cross in it and nothing more to most IMHO.

I think most people are waiting for art to become art again.

I have a favorite fantasy: someday, all of the museum curators are going to have a GIANT garage sale of 20th century garbage-- they'll call it the "What Were We Thinking?" sale. Then they'll take the proceeds from the sale, all $200 or so of it, and maybe buy a little something beautiful.

What a wonderful thought!