Old Man Rivers

Here is a kind of amazing article about "genius" child pornographer Larry Rivers. I'm not really a fan of the art world, personally. The article shows the cult of personality that can develope around a person, to the point that, if they shit in a shoe and sprinkle leaves on it it's considered "provocative" "art." It doesn't take any noticeable talent to be considered an artist, which is one reason I could care less that they starve.

My brother and I went to an art museum in Omaha, Nebraska (I think) and saw a drawing of a Minotaur by Picasso and were outraged. I can't find a picture of it online but it wasn't too different from this:



I hope I'm not shocking anybody by declaring this not good. I have seen parents disappointed in better drawings than this when handed to them by their children.

I know, I know, I just don't understand it. The shittier the artwork, the more "misunderstood" the artist. I think what I understand least is how I'm not also considered an artist. Because I am terrible at drawing. I seem to be right up the art world's alley. I can't draw, I can't paint, I can't sculpt anything remotely recognizable. I'm practically a visionary of modern art, how am I not renowned?

People seem to be celebrated for something literally anybody could do. I have yet to meet a person who isn't capable of pissing in a jar and dropping a crucifix in it.. I tend to feel the same way about most photographers. Do you see many pictures you think you couldn't have taken? I don't. If you're not in harm's way, you're not a good photographer. At the same art museam I saw a color photo of an old naked man on a swing. What are the odd's that, with the same ingredients (for whatever reason), you couldn't have come up with the same picture. I'd say the odd's are low. But would anybody want your picture of naked-swing-man. Nope. You're not a photographer.

And if you made lewd videos of your children that cause them years of psychological damage you would be considered a pervert by everyone. But let Larry Rivers do it and it's "art" because everything an "artist" decides to do is "art." Larry was just breaking taboos with his subversive art. You know what else is taboo? Having sex with your adolescent daughters. It is rightly condemned when done by the neighborhood physician but if Larry Rivers did it to "push the envelope" and because he was "curious" as an "artist" it would be considered the "misguided" art of a "provocative" "genius." I guess this is what happens when you have absolutely no standards to meet. The one standard I thought we could all agree on is "don't terrorize your children." As a society we seem to have come to this understanding. But in the Polanski-besotted art world child-rape and child-terror just makes you a rebel.