Needless to say, the art world is a sphere of left-wing intellectuals. Artist, comedians, journalists, with a strong political sensibility, and she is not conservative. Rarely, comedians, journalists and intellectuals are clearly right-wing. The same goes for artists, and it’s understandable: no more cocktails in luxurious hotels, no more exhibitions in prestigious places, no more press articles, no more fame, and above all: no more fiduciary fallout.
It is better to be the Artist, the one who defends minorities, the one who defends social movements, the one who in times of war fights for peace, against capitalism. Nevertheless, and this is the problem: these intellectual spheres (although with a not so high IQ), do not care. They don’t care about minorities, they don’t care about the poor. They don’t care about racialized. They don’t care about the difference. What they want: to represent the good. Provide and validate a message, so that the masses, the majority, embroider an ego, put her on a pedestal, position her as missing links between Mother Teresa and Che Guevara.
The conservative artist is struggling. Evil because he does not have the right to make mistakes. His ideas can be taken up by the most extremists, his works can be truncated, misinterpreted, rejected so that he is finally banned ad vitam aeternam. He must be sober, while being him. While understanding that this chess game he plays places him as a great outsider. As an outsider?
“It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God“
Even worse, lost in advance. He knows that no gallery will want it. He knows that of no event he will have the invitation. He knows that his sensitivity will always be that of the pariah. But, and this is where he is an artist, he doesn’t care. It does not produce to be seen. He does not paint to be known. He paints, first, to earn his crust. To make a few pennies from its sales. But above all, and it must never forget it, he paints to say what they do not say. “They” are the others. Those other consensuals who remain in the herd. Who protect each other to avoid being the target. They don’t make waves. They speak only when they are told, they paint only what will not be accepted. Welcomed. Rented.
Who would want in his living room a painting depicting the Indian genocide by the USA? Who would want in his room a painting highlighting a civil war against a diffuse background of politics? Better one Mickey, better four hearts: if you don’t have the assurance of dreaming better, you at least have the ignorance of the dreamer. A small step for zealotism, a big step for social misery.
The conservative is on the tightrope, always millimetering his shots. Always got it right. He must live well. And then, anonymity, suits him well. Notoriety is not for him, what he wants is to live from it, it is also, of course, to be the portraitist of a society. The hyper-realistic portraitist, the one who does not make you dream, the one who describes, coldly, frankly, things as they are, and that’s good. At least one was needed.
