the deception of art historians

Ah, the grand mythology of the art historian, the ultimate arbiter of truth, the oracle of the arts. Well I have to burst your bubble, because contemporary art historians are not historians, they are in fact middle-men for the public relations arm of corporations, non-profit organizations, and various NGO’s. Not only are art historians not historians, they are not really genuine arts writers or authentic critics either, they are in fact essentially sociologists. Art historians should in fact call themselves by their proper title as ‘art sociologists’.

We cannot fundamentally understand the overt and extensive corruption in the arts without revealing the role and purpose of art historians. The contemporary art historical canon artists are hand-picked not based on their work, but rather by their usefulness to the cabal network of art oligarch-based institutions. In other words, the mainstream art world could not possibly be more institutionalized. The conventional art world is the institution and the institution is the mainstream art world. George Dickey, the philosopher, had glowing praise towards the role of institutions in the arts. Dickey argued without the institution, there is no sense of record-keeping or documentation in order to support and validate the arts. However, with the advancement of the information age, such philosophical musings are simply not true anymore. For example, take print-on-demand publishing. With print-on-demand, the brick-and-mortar system of operations and commercialization is entirely bypassed to reach the audience. In other words, there is no institutional filtration with print-on-demand publishing. Also, the internet and cloud-based systems gives us a variety of ways to archive and distribute information regarding the arts. Popular event-based websites also help independent curators establish arts festivals and exhibitions.

In terms of Point Pleasant Publishing, none of the most experimental artists in the history of our publications are represented by blue-chip galleries. And yes, we have published many blue-chip artists over the years. You will also find the contemporary art historical canon controlled by art historians severely marginalizes underrepresented and highly experimental art forms, such as performance and moving-image. This is ironic, because the most experimental artists tend to be performance and moving-image artists. The main reason performance and moving-image are highly underrepresented in the art historical canon is because they are not profitable, often anti-commercial in nature, and usually controversial. Do research on how many collectors there are on video art / moving-image for example, they are very rare and such a phenomenon has been well documented, according to the notes of Belgian art collector Alain Servais...

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