Dark Matter

GrassRoots, StreetUp and  Light on

 

I came across this most interesting book (thanks to Beverly Naidus Assoc Prof of Interdisciplinary Arts at UW)

Dark Matter Art and Politics in the Age of Enterprise Culture by Gregory Sholette appeared to fill in another piece of the system's picture.  Dark Matter spoke to me with how financialization has infected/affected creative diversity and how the dark or major matter of the universe upholds the whole. Love that vision!

"All of these forms of dark matter play an essential role in the symbolic economy of art. Collectively the amateur and the failed artist represent a vast flat field upon which a privileged few stand out in relief. "

 (djb: The privileged few represent the necessary scarcity that our current mainstream economic vision maintains in order to conform to its belief  aka scarcity drives up prices right? This is orchestrated by collectors, patrons and galleries looking to make money, what we believe -we manifest.)

"The aim of this book is to raise an inevitable question: what if we turned this figure and ground relation inside out by imagining an art world that could not exclude practices and practitioners it secretly depended upon? What then would become of its value structure and distribution of power? The answer is not to imagine the emergence of a more comprehensive social art history in which the usual art subjects are better contextualized. Nor is the answer to take part in some rarified tour of this dark matter world in which the mysteries missing cultural mass is acknowledged, ruminated over, and re-shelved or archived as a collection of oddities. Instead, when the excluded are made visible, when they demand visibility, it is always ultimately a matter of politics and a rethinking of history."

And when the talent sees the extortion, the stolen ideas plopped into ads, the corporatizing of what emerged  inthe embrace of the collective - they get miffed. When miffed they stop asking permission and create alternative scenes.

Art, music, fashion have been prime instigators that have reseeded the imagination of the culture.  This was often dissed or "ignored" by the mainstream until stolen. Not this time!

This time there is a new story with a conscious intent to align with nature,  play with the energy of the unified field and the heart and soul of  all matter. This time we transform the paradigm, the light is coming on. This is street up.