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"The theater that came next placed their social capital literally on view, staged, showcasing the finer patrons on a pedestal and brightly lit to be gawked upon. It would be called a Blue Ocean Strategy... Whatever institutional critique it held was mostly in the fact that it could do it better, insinuate itself better, prove the sporting of it, point dull yellow lights at the gameroom of it."This is how you get corrupted. Eventually you get intertwined, which is the same as ensnared, because you know these people. Your opinion is no longer neutral, you bite your tongue, you become a compromised asset. There's nothing New Yorkers love more than self-congratulations. They and movie industry making self-congratulations an unironic artform. This is Empire and its state of mind. Do I fear other's toes? - that's what no one was asking. It's fun to be part of something. The toast and the roast are the same to the professional. It's barely caricature at this point. Robbin's Talent was funny because it wasn't a joke. It dryly announced its commercial moment, no art to it at all. Artists as their headshot. Artist as professional. This was before "Top 10 Under 30"s. It was saying the quiet part loud. Here the caricature is alms paid to deny the horse of it all. Barely caricature at all.
"A culture, say a magazine or a museum, that can purchase an absolution to the images it wants through an art that gesticulates critique."
