{"id":3057,"date":"2015-02-10T16:35:45","date_gmt":"2015-02-11T00:35:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/?p=3057"},"modified":"2015-02-10T16:43:12","modified_gmt":"2015-02-11T00:43:12","slug":"what-is-a-subversive-artist-anyway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/2015\/02\/what-is-a-subversive-artist-anyway.html","title":{"rendered":"What Is a &#8220;Subversive&#8221; Artist, Anyway?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[contextly_auto_sidebar id=&#8221;L8uqg7ERM237iPSVXdaL6TdXt2SjQlsL&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p>AFTER a while, I get tired of all the jive around certain terms. &#8220;Disruption&#8221; is one; &#8220;empowerment,&#8221; another. (&#8220;Innovate&#8221; seems to be headed for corporate sponsorship.) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Lady_Gaga_during_the_ArtRave_Tour.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-3058\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Lady_Gaga_during_the_ArtRave_Tour-186x300.png\" alt=\"Lady_Gaga_during_the_ArtRave_Tour\" width=\"186\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Lady_Gaga_during_the_ArtRave_Tour-186x300.png 186w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Lady_Gaga_during_the_ArtRave_Tour.png 220w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 186px) 100vw, 186px\" \/><\/a>\u00a0The latest infuriating one is the way the word &#8220;subversive&#8221; has been turned into a marketing strategy and a straight-faced description of Lady Gaga and Jeff Koons. For my latest Salon <a title=\"ST on &quot;subversive&quot;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.salon.com\/2015\/02\/09\/stop_calling_corporate_pop_stars_%E2%80%9Csubversive%E2%80%9D_gaga_has_nothing_on_actual_dissidents_like_ai_weiwei\/\" target=\"_blank\">story<\/a>, I dig into how we got here and what the consequences are.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s how it kicks off:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The turning point may\u2019ve come when the P.R. pitch about the \u201csubversive cross stitch\u201d came my way. When you\u2019re a journalist long enough, all kinds of ridiculous stuff comes across your desk, like the note I got last year about the family that had chosen to move to Los Angeles \u201cas a brand.\u201d (Hmmmn.) But this pitch about \u201cthe innovator of\u00a0edgy needlepoint\u201d made me wonder what <em>subversive<\/em> even meant these days. At a time when the term is applied to corporate pop stars like Lady Gaga and smug-plutocrat artists like Jeff Koons, subversive has come to mean close to nothing. It\u2019s become the Marilyn Manson of critical terminology \u2014 somewhere between shock and yawn.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I get into Marcel Duchamp, Charlie Hebdo, and other subjects in the course of this rant.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[contextly_auto_sidebar id=&#8221;L8uqg7ERM237iPSVXdaL6TdXt2SjQlsL&#8221;] AFTER a while, I get tired of all the jive around certain terms. &#8220;Disruption&#8221; is one; &#8220;empowerment,&#8221; another. (&#8220;Innovate&#8221; seems to be headed for corporate sponsorship.) \u00a0The latest infuriating one is the way the word &#8220;subversive&#8221; has been turned into a marketing strategy and a straight-faced description of Lady Gaga and Jeff Koons. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[624,70,654,668,696,649,665,592],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3057","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-disruption","7":"category-art","8":"category-capitalism","9":"category-jeff-koons","10":"category-lady-gaga","11":"category-salon","12":"category-the-baffler","13":"category-thomas-frank","14":"entry","15":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3057"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3061,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3057\/revisions\/3061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}