The art world is competitive and it expects work to arrive pregnant with meaning or expensive production. The exceptions (readymades, for example) only prove the rule. I think my work is meaningful, but in a kind of undigestible way unless you're also Like That. I think a lot of our work is this way
The subculture and the media through which we share our art doesn't lend itself to slow digestion. It's hard to cook a full meal at a candy shop. Don't get me wrong, I can definitely make a fancy effortful bonbon, and candy shops are great but I'm like, missing some nutrients in my diet I guess.
Back when I went to art school, the strategy at the time I applied was to never have anything that looked like manga in your portfolio. Anime in the portfolio was an instant art school rejection. So I don't think this is just me being down on furry art. If I was, I wouldn't still be here!
The art institution is super effective at legitimizing all sorts of nonsense. Like the patrons of the arts of yore were literally commissioning artists to paint naked titty and that shit is hanging all over museums all over the world, it's on postcards you can buy, it's a source of cultural power
It doesn't help that, frankly, a big reason the art institution is treated with such reverence in the first place is because it's used constantly for money laundering.
I'm not so much interested in the art market and the auction house as much as I am in the artist-run centre and non-commercial gallery
i feel like in recent years i've seen more contemporary "high" art acknowledging modern pop culture like manga and furries. you have to package it in the right way for the institution to acknowledge it, but tbh i've long felt like your work would be a shoe-in
like you explore ideas of transformation through the lens of cartoons and costumed characters. there's an element of sensuality and an element of fear/anxiety to that kind of change and your work often revels in both. i feel like i could write an artist's statement, haha
📝
Yes. Unfortunately we are "outsider art", but the people who decide what is "outside" are the most boring fucking people alive