President Trump: Modern Art is a Con

Also by Peter Vadala: Art for Art’s Sake?  AND The Incestuous Hollywood Pitch: “It’s X Meets Y”

In The Art Of The Deal, President Donald Trump writes, “I’ve always felt that a lot of modern art is a con … I sometimes wonder what would happen if collectors knew what I knew.” He was recounting the story of how his friend basically dumped the contents of a few paint cans on a canvas and sold the resulting, careless dribble for thousands, and thousands of dollars. Below is the story from his book, if you’d like to read it, which you can click to listen.

A friend of mine, a highly successful and very well known painter, calls to say hello and to invite me to an opening. I get a great kick out of this guy because, unlike some artists I’ve met, he’s totally unpretentious. A few months back he invited me to come to his studio. We were standing around talking, when all of a sudden he said to me, “Do you want to see me earn twenty-five thousand dollars before lunch?” “Sure,” I said, having no idea what he meant. He picked up a large open bucket of paint and splashed some on a piece of canvas stretched on the floor. Then he picked up another bucket, containing a different color, and splashed some of that on the canvas. He did this four times, and it took him perhaps two minutes. When he was done, he turned to me and said, “Well, that’s it. I’ve just earned twenty-five thousand dollars. Let’s go to lunch.” He was smiling, but he was also absolutely serious. His point was that plenty of collectors wouldn’t know the difference between his two-minute art and the paintings he really cares about. They were just inter-ested in buying his name. I’ve always felt that a lot of modem art is a con, and that the most successful painters are often better salesmen and promoters than they are artists. I some-times wonder what would happen if collectors knew what 1 knew about my friend’s work that afternoon. The art world is so ridiculous that the revelation might even make his paintings more valuable! Not that my friend is about to risk finding out.

“Dealing: A Day in the Life.” Trump: The Art of the Deal, by Donald Trump and Tony Schwartz, Ballantine Books, 2015.

A character in La-La Land, perhaps, voiced the problem with today’s art world as close as today’s Hollywood and Broadway are capable of understanding it. “People love what other people are passionate about,” Mia says. With the light-speed expression of opinion facilitated by social media, it has never been easier to follow the mob of artistic taste.

However, the author of Narnia, C.S. Lewis, warned us about the dangers of letting others define what we’re passionate about.

“The desire for bad art is the desire bred of habit: like the smoker’s desire for tobacco, more marked by the extreme malaise of denial than by any very strong delight in fruition.”

C.S. Lewis

I believe it was in Christian Reflections or Mere Christianity (leave a comment if you can identify the quote) where C.S. Lewis warned Western Civilization against “liking” music simply because it’s what you hear on the radio, adopting as our favorite song or book something just because it’s what all the “experts” happen to be making a fuss over.

Is Your Favorite Song Really Someone Else’s?

There’s a problem with simply letting someone else’s passion for a particular piece of art or music define your taste. You might not think this is you; you might think you’ve cultivated a taste in music all of your own. If this is you, let me challenge this assumption, just for a moment. Think of your favorite song. Can you explain why it’s your favorite, compared to another, similar song?

The harsh reality many Americans, just like the “art buyers” President Trump talks about in the quote above, are too afraid to face is that they don’t actually enjoy their favorite song. They don’t actually derive any sense of intrinsic personal satisfaction from hanging that modern art on their walls. Nor does anyone who visits their home and looks at the art on the wall. And yet, because it is signed by an artist like the hack Donald Trump was talking about, they all have an unspoken agreement to never admit that the emperor has no clothes; that the art is really nothing more than a dude who dumped a few cans of paint on a canvas.

Now, naturally, you can expect that all the “art gurus” out there are going to comment, “but Peter, who says Art is supposed to give you personal satisfaction? Perhaps art can be a moldy old shoe, or a piece of half-chewed gum; maybe even a pubic hair. In any event, Peter Vadala, how dare you judge somebody’s soul?”

Most of those artistic hacks say that because they’re still trying to figure out how to pay for their own art-school loans from artistic hack places like Montserrat, as their trust funds wear thin, and they are afraid that perhaps if the art community finds them out then all of them will discover how pointless their pursuit of this unmotivated weirdness as an end unto itself really is. May I affirm to this fake art community, as well as the Hollywood, who produce the muck of the moment, that the man of the hour is not likely to be the man of the ages.

To go back from the half-hearted admission of Mia that today’s American art world, lacking any real care – because passion only gets an artist so far. There comes a time where actual effort, careful study is required. And not just any study, but study of wise, good things, things one’s mind is simply a little too open to discover when one’s mind is clouded with whatever the mob happens to be chasing at the moment – like a slosh of paint nonchalantly vomited on the floor. I mean, by these standards, why not actually vomit on a canvas? I wouldn’t put it past today’s art world. As a result of this blog, I’m sure some “open-minded” artist will do it, if they haven’t already. After all, according to this particular artistic crowd, mind-altering substances are necessary to achieve true creativity. So why not open both the mind and the bowels?

That Empty Feeling

Let’s revisit that quote from an actual artist, C.S. Lewis, who painted with words like these, which have endured, unlike the stuff today’s America is churning out.

“The desire for bad art is the desire bred of habit: like the smoker’s desire for tobacco, more marked by the extreme malaise of denial than by any very strong delight in fruition.”

C.S. Lewis

Do you ever go to the movie theater just because? I know you’ve turned the television on for this reason, or lack thereof.

Somewhere in your mind, you know – you’re certain, as you return from a long workday, that whatever you’re about to watch on TV, or Netflix, is going to leave that dingy, dark, weird awfulness in you. But even though you know how awful it will make you feel, you go ahead and turn the television program or YouTube video on anyway. And then you get that awful feeling of wasted time, wasted life, but proceed to come back to the thing again and again, despite the fact that it actually makes you feel worse about your life and yourself.

As much as the modern art industry would love for you to believe that you’re the problem; that it is indeed amazing and that you simply don’t understand why their filth doesn’t do it for you –

As much as the counterfeit “art people” would like to convince you that really it’s they who know what beauty and truth is, and that you’re simply not open-minded enough, may I encourage you to listen to that still soft voice in your own soul. Just because today’s modern art traders are so desperate for a distraction from the betrayal of their own soul- like all those television and Netflix watchers – doesn’t mean that you have to go along with it out of fear that you somehow don’t fit in. The truth is, it’s 99.9% rubbish. And, in the unabashed, raw but refreshingly genuine remarks of an Englishman I met while bussing his table just north of the Hub of the Universe: as the Englishman said, “Hollywood’s awards ceremonies are largely a masturbatory exercise.” You’ll forgive me, I trust, for quoting him here, but I believe he hit the nail on the head.

And it’s not just Hollywood. It’s New York, it’s Nashville, and it’s definitely AOC, who is trying harder than any of them to convince you that somehow, sterilization is sexy. That somehow, effeminate men are sexy. That somehow, machismo women are sexy. Take a trip to Gloucester. Take a trip to the hub of the universe. It’s the most disgusting, evil thing that America has ever done, and every artist in Hollywood worth his salt ought to be ashamed of it. Don’t forget to spay and neuter your children, is I think where this is going.

I remember watching the South Park Movie, and the kids watched a video of someone defecating in Eric’s mom’s mouth. When I had Netflix, I reacted the way they reacted.

America, that’s what Hollywood and Broadway are doing to all of us, if we let them. They’re… barfing in our mouths. And we’re all smiling and nodding our heads.

What Kind Of Art Do You Like?

As a long-suffering artist, I can identify with Mozart, making all this wonderful stuff, and slaving away in the oddest of stupid jobs nobody wants because nobody recognizes what good art really is – at least – right now. It was hated during his lifetime to the point of oblivion. And then – it wasn’t.

What kind of art do you like? Ask yourself this question, for the love of all that is holy and good and pure: why? Why do you like it? What do you like about that song; about that elf on a shelf, mench on a bench, dick on a stick, whatever the devil Hollywood is engraving in celluloid these days?

Once again, President Donald Trump:

I’ve always felt that a lot of modem art is a con, and that the most successful painters are often better salesmen and promoters than they are artists. I some-times wonder what would happen if collectors knew what 1 knew about my friend’s work that afternoon.

So, what say you? Is modern art actual art, or is it all a scam to attempt to validate the trust-fund, grizzly female nude hippies and waxed men at Montseratt? Let me know in the comments, and share your good taste – if you have good taste – with the America’s Man’s Man community. I want to say that I look forward to reading your comments below, but, from some of you, I really don’t.

Regardless, if you’d like to discover good art, or if you’d like to become a part of the solution to America’s artistic hangover, start by joining America’s Men’s Men – and our women – in The Fallout, and by introducing yourself in the comments below.

For more from Peter on this, check out Peter’s email newsletter on Art for Art’s Sake. And see if you don’t agree that even that mantra is a lie, because art for art’s sake is really no art at all.