Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

the sheer, apolitical idea of “art for arts’ sake”


 Apolitical? Apolitical? Hang on, what year is this? 1890 or so? Er, apolitical is, like, so... pre-enlightenment. Seriously, do we have to do this again?

All art partakes in the political: resistance to politics counts as a political action, in so far as it refutes the claim of art subsumed to political intentions.  I love art for art's sake because it is political, a politics of resistance to dominant ideals of 'useful'. 

But then again, since art exists in a social context, it always acts on that context. 

But I don't like 'apolitical', I don't like 'natural' and I don't like 'objective'. All weasel words used to present an argument as truth, that hide the constructed behind an appeal to absolute values.

I also find the discussion of funding strategies by artists... problematic, since artists argue for the position that suits their work. That might be why we had critics in the old days, because they don't stand to gain financially by the orientation of their reviews.