Elwyn Palmerton wrote this letter to the New York Times in response to Holland Cotter’s story last week, “The Boom is Over: Long Live the Art!”
For years Mr. Cotter has said the same things: The art market is bad. Money is bad, and it’s making art worse. These kids are all making bright shallow things for the ravenous art market.
As a struggling artist and art writer (one who makes bright shallow things), I find these critical broadsides irritating. The implication that my entire generation has been brainwashed by M.F.A. programs and transformed into craven money-hungry fiends by the art market always struck me as slightly glib and naïve. [ . . . ] This economic crisis has been worse for artists than it has been for everyone else. Try living in New York with the debt of a higher education but without the increases in earning power and job security that this usually brings. It is not fun.
Art and Commerce: Not All Cashed In On the Boom (New York Times)
