By: Tim Johnson

Tim Johnson — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 20:59:50 +0000

Here is your average Alby Klein.

By: tom coonen

tom coonen — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 15:03:07 +0000

Klein’s capitalism is one thing, anti-capitalism another, that is, capitalism can’t contain an anti-capitalism; any anti-capitalism is against all capitalism. Capitalism hasn’t a nuance or variation, doesn’t have forms or parts, it is an invariable mass. well, okay, reminds me of some imaginations so i guess it’s possible. still, i’d like to say, the system, the place, the USA pretty much is, if ya live there, about the only place to go and therein capitalism, in some form or in a single mass, is already there. the artist did not bring it there but may have brought something pertinent not only in capitalism but in pre-, post- and no-capitalism places such as, e.g., the distant past and future.

By: Alby Klein

Alby Klein — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 22:36:30 +0000

Here is your average artist who opposes “the brutalities of capitalism” or whatever you and Scholz are calling it. She makes a living by selling her labor at a day job, temping, or freelancing. When she exhibits and sells her suitably anti-capitalist work and at suitable anti-capitalist non-profit gallery, her exhibition is usually bankrolled by some wealthy donor who invariably has got money in a way that is directly or indirectly dependent on an industry she finds despicable, or by a trust funder who has decided to pursue an artistic calling rather than quantitative hedge funds or drug dealing (no offensive intended). She can rail against capitalism all day, this artist, but without its millionaires and exploitation, there’s no exhibition, no museum, no art school, grant, or collector. Thus her opposition always has a hollow ring to it: she knows she’s permitted – even encouraged – to complain but only within a tiny approved space; moreover, she’ll leap at the first opportunity to decorate the walls of the wealthy, while still being sure to say all the correct non-conformist things in private and think of herself as a free-thinker and revolutionary. She is against everything, but has no constructive suggestions. In addition, her artistic and intellectual pretensions put her outside of the common stream of humanity: she has a lot more in common – culturally – with the middle or upper classes than with the working class and the poor, though she likes to pretend otherwise. If there is ever a genuine threat to the capitalist system, to the cheap luxuries and the cheap fuel, to the pseudo-intellectual culture and system of values that she was born into, and to the high standard of living she enjoys relative to the rest of the world, she suddenly finds herself – much to her surprise! – a reactionary, and very uncomfortable. This is more or less the image that comes to mind when you talk about an artist who opposes “the brutalities of finance capital.” What is really behind all this hand wringing? First, most of these artists are non-conformists. Their resentment isn’t based on any systematic understanding of society, but simply on a subjective feeling that the fact of having money is morally wrong and because they don’t have enough of it they are somehow morally right. Second, the radical stance is a good career move. It’s fashionable to go around spouting left-wing ideas and saying you enjoy Godard; critics understand it and like to write about it. It makes you interesting and can hide a lack of talent, skill, and thought. Third, a lot of these types have an inflated idea of their own superiority. As artists and intellectuals and would-be iconoclasts, they believe that the progressive society would be a society of artists and intellectuals; in short, a society of themselves.

Comments on: Bohemia Of Finances

By: Tim Johnson

By: tom coonen

By: Alby Klein