I’m not so foolish to think that a few chains closing or a few bad economic months are somehow the end to Capitalism or the Consumer Economy. I am sorry, but I don’t see the old way of life crumbling around us. Everyone is just waiting… paused… like a fox in the bushes, for the old way to come back. And it seems like there is a build up of desire. As if to say “When the machine starts again, boy o’ boy are we going to get ours!”
In the ’60s there were groups of artists turning away from the gallery, the white cube. They made works that were intended to not be sold or owned. Yet, we have seen since then the acquisition of such works by museums – the sale of such works by galleries. The institutions exist and are not willing to transfer power away from their own self interest. The critiques are absorbed.