Dave Hickey's Art Rant

Reading Dave Hickey’s The Birth of the Big Beautiful Market the first thing that came to my mind is this man is too caught up in his romanticism and nostalgia for the 1950s and 1960s.  I hear it all the time with other Baby Boomers, “Back in my day things were much more simple…”, “When I was young we didn’t have all the problems the world now faces…” So on and so forth.  The world is constantly changing, but there is much that stays the same.  To properly talk about and critic the Art World or its inhabitants a person needs to look past all preconceived ideas and notions. Not abandon them completely, but refuse to let them bias the person before that person looks deeper into the Art World.

Throughout this reading Hickey continues to come back to the idea that galleries and universities overtook everything and began to spit out their idea of art. Just like General Motors and cars. More and more Hickey sounds grumpy and angry that he can’t freeze time and keep it exactly where he wants it. Because in his mind, the 1960s were a time when everything made sense, and everything was known and understood. By Hickey.

As Hickey’s rant goes on he talks about a secular Reformation, at least in terms of art. In his mind the dichotomy of grace and works can be interchanged with theory and practice. Hickey is not a fan of the fight between the institutions’ theory of art and the artists’ practice of it. This is where Hickey goes off the deep end and I get completely lost in what he is trying to say. He seems to keep his anger in check until the last few pages, then it is full on pointing fingers and yelling things.

Finishing the reading, I ultimately have no idea what Hickey’s point was suppose to be. Everyone shut up and create art? Galleries and universities are evil and create mindless art zombies? I honestly don’t know. To me Hickey is an angry bitter man who just wants to get back to his youth where the world was at his finger tips and he had his whole life ahead of him.