SPIRITUAL SOAP: Perpetually Uninspired: Hollow Art, Sour Souls
Open in case of art industry failures.
Before we were The Black Sheep, we were a newsletter named Spiritual Soap. Please enjoy this article from our history!
I periodically see the same plea and it’s one I’ve repeatedly made myself: we need more art that understands the strange times we’re living in.
Past generations had artists that voiced their feelings of rebellion, optimism, or anger toward their cultural moment. What about us? Most art today doesn’t exist in the same time as us. Contemporary art is timeless in the worst way; incessant refrains about fun and fucking, detached from the anxieties of our time unless those anxieties are convenient for making an institution-approved point. White cop shoots black man? Beyoncé album. White cop shoots white man? Club bangers continue on.
Where does the art we need come from when the art world itself is part of the cultural moment troubling us?
I struggle to find what I need in art today, so I usually turn to the past and lean on the classic…