Everywhere, Ugliness

[Paul McCarthy’s Complex Pile, as displayed in Hong Kong in 2013.]

Last year, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the very first art school in the USA, founded in 1807, ceased giving out degrees in painting and sculpture, not that these were worth much anyway. In 2024, The University of the Arts, my school, and the San Francisco Art Institute shut down altogether. Many more art schools, and writing programs, too, will close shop. Americans are increasingly indifferent, if not hostile, to the arts, but hasn’t it been, for a very long time, a two way street?

At Wikipedia, there are 427 entries for San Francisco Art Institute alumni. Of these, I can only recognize three names, performance artist Karen Finley, photographer Annie Leibovitz and sculptor Paul McCarthy. So what, you say, you don’t know nothing! Until the late 90’s, I did pay pretty close attention to the visual arts. My first published writing was as an art critic, in the now defunct New Art Examiner, out of Chicago. I was a critic-in-residence at Art in General in NYC. I guest curated a show at Moore College of Arts in Philadelphia. My only point is this, if a guy who’s somewhat interested in the arts can’t recognize most of its more famous practitioners, it must be a very insular playground.