Academic Art James Stanfield

Artworks are ritual objects. They become useful when viewed from a context that makes them so. Here the context is super reduced and super simple: the objects that produce the most money are the best objects. In my place and at this time, the idea of appreciation is tied in an exceedingly simple way to the idea of commodity.

Academic art (major). The Chelsea shopping mall is the academy, and the farce of serious language as a catalyst for the sale of ritual objects is the current hallmark of academic art. It is when language surrounding an artwork becomes more like a sales point and less like a belief that the art in question has become academic.

Academic art (minor). Reactionary to academic art (major), academic art (minor) seeks to eliminate art language completely.

Academic art. The pejorative phrase is abused. If used, it should mostly be directed towards decorations bound for Chelsea walls. But a better phrase might just be boring art.