The $2M Urinal: Why Hard Work Doesn’t Cut It (2018)

I guess the question is whether arrogance arises from high self esteem or as a compensation for low self esteem... My experience is usually it's the latter.

Thanks for the links! I have some commentary on some of the pieces that I found most interesting:

http://www.allworldwars.com/image/008/SovietPictures063.jpg

Dreamlike imagery, sleeping position, very vertical, contrasting colors, a strange bit of peace in war and imminent death, jagged fields that the man is hurdling towards.

http://www.allworldwars.com/image/008/SovietPictures041.jpg

The men seem to melt into the trenches and become part of the mud. The warm colors evoke a feeling of sunlight, yet feel horrific. The muted faces are reminiscent of Edvard Munch's Scream. little explosions, or are they grasses, pop off everywhere. Chaos

http://www.allworldwars.com/image/008/SovietPictures055.jpg

Good historical view of the hardships that women underwent in the absence of men. The little boy's face is almost plastic and is the only one seen in the painting. A lot of subtle commentary on the soviet system in here, as it ended up just like the old ways of the Czars

http://www.allworldwars.com/image/008/SovietPictures069.jpg

Just like a Degas, at least to me. Not seeing the face of the player leaves you guessing as to how this solider got to be where he is. Was he a pianist before the draft? How did he learn to play? The gun is on his back and prominently central to the painting. The scattered papers tell a story of a battle and fleeing in panic. The highlighter colors give a waviness to it all, a sense of uncertainty and serenity pervades the piece

http://www.allworldwars.com/image/008/SovietPictures057.jpg

Great use of sky, water and man. A private returns home, but to what? The war is over for him, but the peace is just as uncertain. Will the clouds of this spring day pour on him, or will it stay sunny?

http://www.allworldwars.com/image/008/SovietPictures019.jpg

The structure of the colors here is stark, obvious, yet wonderful. Black enemy, white allies, red sky of soviet victory. The use of triangular imagery. Very Picasso-y

http://www.allworldwars.com/image/008/SovietPictures065.jpg

The news arrives and it is bad. Just like the immigrant-farmer mother picture of the US depression. The woman shines in the dark room, her child tries to support her, her back is straight all the same despite the news. She faces off-stage and is nearly pushed off the bench by her child, who is in the center. The little window, her former existence, is full of things and life, she faces her new darker life with what appears to be a shroud and a rifle leaned up against the wall. The letter still hangs brightly in her right hand.

The _second_ time it's done! The way I see it, the first person to hang an all white canvas in an art gallery is a genius. The second, third, and fourth, not so much.

This article is not really about art.

My father was a “scrape yourself up from the bottom” guy. He was the hardest working person I’ve ever known, first as a physical laborer, then as an operating systems programmer. Microsoft used his Wang kernel for NT, but he never got on that train. He was deeply skeptical of all institutions of prestige and never attended college. His father was a professor, double math/physics PhD at Berkeley. The hard road for him was a conscious choice, something he had to prove to himself every day. Life eventually beat it out of him, but that’s a different story.

I don’t match up to him, but I have a habit of leaving the professional world to live among laborers and soldiers for the comforts of their ethos. It seems that everybody exists somewhere on the spectrum from ascetic to charlatan: monk, soldier, athlete, laborer, coder, doctor, manager, lawyer, salesman, founder, artist, celebrity, criminal. You may dispute the order, but that’s where I’ve seen the category _medians_ fall. The art example: buy a toilet and sell it for millions, is brazen chicanery; in fact that’s what gives it value, although you might also agree that the network made it possible. Similarly, many startups are technical garbage before they get money-bombed into a foregone conclusion. Network? Charisma? Luck? Outrageous claims that offend technical experts? It’s not that different from the art world.

But is it good advice to network? PG says no. AVC says no. Trust that there are plenty of failed artists trying to network their way into million dollar toilets too. On average, plumbers do better, but nobody’s impressed with a working toilet until they stop going to burning man and divorce the artist.

Nowadays, rule-breaking is no longer provocative. It's derivative. We all got the memo: there's no set definition of art, it doesn't need to be skillfully made, it doesn't need to be beautiful, it can be offensive, blah blah blah. It's not clever any more.

I respect Duchamp. He made his point so eloquently that none of the imitators are adding anything to the conversation.