Canvas of Compromise or Art is heading to Qatar.

I don’t really like being an artist these days.

On one side, people look at Marina Abramović and think all artists are somehow involved in a SATAN CULT.

On the other, they see Hirst’s dots or Pollock’s paintings and decide artists are simply crazy.

And now add AI to the mix.

Suddenly, we’re crazy for still picking up a pencil when a machine can generate a “masterpiece” in seconds.

Beautiful time to be alive.

And… honestly, some of the criticism has a point.

The art world has never exactly been famous for transparency.
Art has been used for shady things.
Money laundering.
Tax games.
Reputation laundering.
And now increasingly, artwashing.

But for me, art is much simpler.
It’s a way to connect with people around the world.
A way to speak some kind of common language without actually sharing the same language.

Still, no matter what kind of work I make or what projects I take part in, I can’t completely escape the dark cloud hanging over the art world.

Because right now, the art market is in crisis.
Big players like Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Art Basel are all trying to find their own ways to survive it.

Sotheby’s has even explored helping governments value and potentially sell works from public collections.

And Art Basel?
They’re expanding into places like Qatar.

A country heavily criticised over migrant workers’ rights during preparations for the World Cup — and connected to one of Europe’s biggest recent political corruption scandals.

And yes:
There is no such thing as a “wrong” place for art.
Art should exist everywhere.

Until art starts being used to clean up someone else’s mess.
Then things get slightly more complicated.

Why is this really, really bad?
Because the public loves labels.
Simple labels.
Artist.
Billionaire.
Museum.
Activist.
Elite.
Fraud.

And even if I never attend some luxury event for billionaires and tier-one artists, I’m still part of the same “art world” in people’s minds.

I still get thrown into the same box.

That’s the uncomfortable part of contemporary art criticism from inside the system:

How am I supposed to protest oil companies and mega-corporations that don’t care about climate change when the art world itself happily takes their money?

How do artists criticise power while exhibitions, museums, fairs and cultural institutions depend on that same power for sponsorship?

How do you protest corporations when corporate art sponsorship helps decide which art gets seen?

That contradiction doesn’t disappear just because the artwork itself is critical.
Artists at the bottom are mostly just trying to survive.

We’re trying to document what’s happening around us through art in much the same way journalists document it through articles.

We make something.
We leave a record.

We say:
This is what the world looked like to me.

But the people at the top of the art market keep speaking louder than everyone else. And whether individual artists take a stand or not, the system still ends up speaking for us.

Too often, it speaks from the wrong side.

My own protest might occasionally feel like a tiny win.
A painting.
A text.
Refusing a collaboration.
Saying something publicly.

But it’s difficult to celebrate those small wins when the whole system feels like one enormous loss.

Maybe that’s what I dislike most about being an artist right now.
Not AI art.
Not people making jokes about Pollock.
Not even the satanic Marina Abramović memes.
It’s having to defend art from the same art world that claims to represent it.

...your worst artist and best friend,

hEhe and my contemporary art criticism

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