The artists featured in this new show at Austin's WCC –
Banksy,
Alex Katz,
Robert Indiana,
Takashi Murakami, and many others – have subverted the contemporary art world throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Although, if they have? And their works are on display here? What, precisely, does "the contemporary art world" even mean? Does art subvert art? Ultimately, as
Michelle Gurevich put it, "It doesn't matter what you create, if you have no fun." But then, we're not necessarily talking about the people who
create; we're more precisely considering the people who
consume and perhaps
market what
other people create, and who often enjoy a frisson of second-hand transgression among the piles of material wealth that help distract them, however briefly, from mortality's gaping maw.: I mean, amirite?