Although the art world reveres the unconventional, it is rife with conformity. Artists make work that "looks like art" and behave in ways that enhance stereotypes. Curators pander to the expectations of their peers and their museum boards. Collectors run in herds to buy work by a handful of fashionable painters. Critics stick their finger in the air to see which way the wind is blowing so as to "get it right". Originality is not always rewarded, but some people take real risks and innovate, which gives a raison d'être to the rest. Sarah Thornton
About This Quote

Art is the primary representation of our culture and it tells an important story about human life. If art reflects society, then what we see in the art world is very much like what we see in our own lives. What type of stories do we tell? What stereotypes are we reinforcing? How do we determine who is "good" and who is "bad"?

Source: Seven Days In The Art World

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More Quotes By Sarah Thornton
  1. The term bohemian has a bad reputation because it's allied to myriad clichés, but Parisians originally adopted the term, associated with nomadic Gypsies, to describe artists and writers who stayed up all night and ignored the pressures of the industrial world.
  2. Although the art world reveres the unconventional, it is rife with conformity. Artists make work that "looks like art" and behave in ways that enhance stereotypes. Curators pander to the expectations of their peers and their museum boards. Collectors run in herds to buy work...
  3. The contemporary art world is what Tom Wolfe would call a "statusphere." It's structured around nebulous and often contradictory hierarchies of fame, credibility, imagined historical importance, institutional affliction, perceived intelligence, wealth, and attribution such as the size of one's art collection.
  4. Although the art world is frequently characterised as a classless scene where artists from lower-msddle-class backgrounds drink champagne with high-priced hedge-fund managers, scholarly curators, fashion designers and other "creatives, " you'd be mistaken if you thought the world was egalitarian or democratic. Art is about...
  5. I'm an atheist, but I believe in art. I go to galleries like my mother went to church. It helps me understand the way I live.
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