The Invisible Sculpture Sale is Symbolic of the Systematic Shams Elites Expect Us to Swallow

You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet:

The $18,000 “Immaterial” Sculpture

The art world is in a crisis of relevance these days. Just about the only time art gets attention outside the culture industry cocoon is when it can exemplify stupidity, envy, or a combination of the two.

Stupidity comes when a PR hungry artist performs a silly stunt, like taping a banana to the wall. Or puts their dirty unmade bed into a gallery. 

Envy is invoked when a stunning sales price is announced. Most understand a high value for rarity and quality, such as a presumed work by a master like Leonardo Di Vinci; the uncertain Salvator Mundi sold for $450 million in 2017. People wonder how anyone could have that much money to spend on something made just to look at, and imagine what they could do those kind of funds.

But usually the art selling for inflated amounts doesn’t have that kind of legendary provenance. It’s in Modern and Contemporary art where foolishness and asset covetousness come together most clearly. It occurs when the general public sees obvious scams lavishly rewarded. The banana sold for $120,000. The unmade bed is valued at over $4 million now. The populace rightly scoffs at the sheer folly on display.

Salvatore Garau, an Italian trickster, produced a recent example of expensive non-art. His “immaterial” sculpture Io Sono (I Am) sold for $18,000. The piece does not exist. What the purchaser received for their money was the artiste’s word salad poor excuse for an explanation and a gen-u-ine “certificate of authenticity.” The patron must keep a 5 foot square space available for the nothing to be on display; fortunately, it does not require any special lighting or climate control. What a bargain.

There’s many unsavory factors festering under the surface in the art market. Money laundering, tax evasion, and insider trading doubtlessly drive the high financing. And yet there is something more sinister at work here than white collar crimes.

The villains aren’t the con artists who produce, or pretend to produce, ridiculous rubbish in the name of art. They’re just bit players. The real source of dangerous and deliberate derangement is the globalist New Aristocracy of the Well Connected. They’ve inherited and/or invented a whole phony world we all are expected to play along with.

The establishment has mislabeled hoaxes as art for at least a century. In 1917, a mentally ill woman submitted a urinal to an exhibit. The French charlatan Marcel Duchamp later took credit for it as a new form of expression; in fact, a higher form of expression, where something which is obviously not art becomes art by relying on elitist acceptance and support to function.

If you don’t accept a urinal – or an invisible sculpture, or a banana, or dirty linens – as art, well, that just proves you are one of those knuckle-dragging mouth breathers with deplorable Neanderthal thinking. The members of the club-they get it. Don’t you want to be a member of the club?

Art was just the thin edge of the wedge. It’s like visionary William Blake tried to warn us, “Empire follows art and not vice versa.” After the establishment weaponized art into an assault on reality itself, and made it a litmus test for social status, they’ve rolled out numerous other deceptive mandates to obey.

It’s so much worse than just having an opinion on an ambiguous situation. Again and again, the actual evidence contradicts the elitist position. Instead of accepting reality, our ruling class assume they can will their preferences into existence just by agreeing amongst themselves, insisting the rest of us go along with them, and blocking any channel for the truth to come out. It’s extra convenient for the in-crowd to advocate for any absurdity that comes along, because as elites they are not held to the standards of behavior they demand of others.

Our Postmodern Progressive overlords have developed a long list of required false beliefs for their followers to conform to: man made climate change is an emergency. Systematic racism exists. Citizens don’t need guns. The problem with the Middle East is Israel. Speech is violence and violence is speech, depending who the speaker is. Men can become women or women can become men just because they want to. Abortion is not infanticide. Defunding the police will lead to safer communities. The Woo Hoo flu is such a danger we must give up our Constitution. That same Woo Hoo flu was not released by the Chi Coms accidently on purpose. We did not just experience the most consequential and blatant election fraud in history. Joe Biden is not a perverted vegetable. Patriots are domestic terrorists. All will be well if we submit to our Postmodern Progressive overlords.

I bet if you believe one of these delusions, you believe them all. Congratulations, you’ve been successfully indoctrinated!

We’ve gotten to the point where there is such a disconnect between elitist desires and reality, it is a threat. The danger comes from just how far the establishment will go to maintain the illusionary world they’ve schemed into existence. The elitists believe they have power because they are just that much better than everyone else, not because they are willing participants in a consolidated combine of lies and cronyism. It will hurt to lose their prestige. They will defend it viciously.

Art is good place to start, to help ease the establishment out of their attitude of omnipotence. Hans Christian Anderson nailed the situation when he wrote “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” We all need to be the little boy speaking truth to power.

The Emperors are naked. There is no invisible sculpture. And the whole Marxist program is based on lies.

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RICHARD BLEDSOE is a visual story teller; a painter of fables and parables. He received his BFA in Painting from Virginia Commonwealth University. Richard has been an exhibiting artist for over 25 years, in both the United States and internationally. He lives and paints happily in Phoenix, Arizona, with his wife Michele and cat Motorhead. He is the author of Remodern America: How the Renewal of the Arts Will Change the Course of Western Civilization:

“Remodernism is not a style of art, it is a form of motivation. We express the universal language of inspired humanity.

“We do not imitate what came before. We find in ourselves the same divine essence of love and excitement which has inspired masterpieces throughout history. We are strengthened by drawing on traditions thousands of years old.

“We integrate the bold, visionary efforts of the Modern era into a holistic, meaningful expression of contemporary life. Remodernism seeks a humble maturity which heals the fragmentation and contradictions of Modernism, and obliterates the narcissistic lies of Postmodernism.

“Remodernism is the return of art as a revelation.”

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I don’t fundraise off of my blog. I don’t ask for Patreon or Paypal donations. If you’d like to support the Remodern mission, buy a book. Or a painting. 

Learn more About My Art: Visionary Experience

My wife Michele Bledsoe has written her own inspirational book, Painting, Passion and the Art of Life.

Remodernism Video: BEFORE THERE WAS FAKE NEWS, THERE WAS FAKE ART

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