LLEI D'ART 10

mockery and outrage, where nobody is interested in healthy, reasonable criticism because we prefer flattery, even if it is foolish and perplexing. And thanks to this fawning –by and large adulterated and hypocritical– many people float around repeating the same things, imitating others’ talent and skill, without the slightest idea about what they are saying. All this for the delight of anyone who turns up in favour of this new counterculture that they wouldn’t pay a brass farthing for, but that they have been able to milk to death. As if this weren’t enough of a disaster, here comes the unfortunate figure of the artist of a certain quality and expectations that fulfils his function from the stalls and has completely passed over the inner workings of this thorny plot: this is what most worries me, because the conceptualist dunce tends to hang around with a wayward gang of good-for-nothings, dragging with them the chains of their artistic freedom in exchange for any old coinage, and not much at that. However, since you can’t flog a dead horse, all this will create frustration and neglect, frequently accompanied by disorientation and loss of reality: as the doctor might say –what a disaster! The attempt to trivialise art in order to turn it into something frivolous and flimsy was good, but it failed. There is a counter-attack, and it’s coming. Everyone talks about spending Because they say that he who spends Pretending that he is rich Has what he needs … The heart of the matter Is turning money around So that is always comes back To where is comes from Anonymous Todos hablan de gastar porque dicen que el que gasta con dar pruebas de ser rico tiene lo que le hace falta … El quid de la cosa está en que dé vueltas la plata de modo que vuelva siempre al punto de donde parta Anónimo Joaquín Sorolla. Joaquina la gitana/ Joaquina the Gypsy, 1914. © Museo Sorolla, Madrid 123