I wanted to like this meme, but upon investigation its point falls apart. Neither of these modern artists were “artists with degrees,” in fact it’s the complete opposite. They weren’t elitists from academic institutions, they came from ordinary backgrounds and were basically untrained in art.
▪️The banana duct taped to the wall was done by Maurizio Cattelan, an Italian artist. He was ”the son of a truck driver and cleaning woman, he grew up rough and working class. He spent his youth getting poor grades in school and then flailing around with s****y, menial jobs as a young man…”
▪️He had no formal training in art, he started his career designing and building furniture. He is known for being a joker, humor and satire is at the core of much of his work.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/maurizio-cattelan-is-one-of-arts-greatest-mysteries/
▪️The tryptich (three white canvas squares) was painted by Robert Ryman, an American artist. He did attend college, enrolling at the Tennessee Polytechnic Institute in 1948, then transferring to George Peabody College the next year. But he studied music & doesn’t appear to have gotten a degree (he was in college for just 2 years)
▪️In 1950, Ryman enlisted in the US Army reserve corps and was assigned to an army reserve band during the Korean War. After his military service he moved to NYC with hopes of becoming a professional saxophonist.
▪️He took on various odd jobs to support himself, including being a security guard at the MOMA. Here he met various contemporary artists, bought supplies and started experimenting in his apartment, eventually launching his art career.
https://web.archive.org/web/20081026084819/http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_bio_140.html
▪️Clearly, “artists with degrees” doesn’t explain these modern art works. Instead, these were people with no formal art training that managed to reach high status in the modern art world. A different narrative is needed to explain it!
So many of these right wing accounts are just whiners now, this is a diatribe about automatic sinks and towels, the horror! As I explained in a prior post, most of the newer terminals have great bathrooms, some now have completely private stalls and plenty of them. The worst and most crowded airport bathrooms are invariably found in aging terminals that are decades old. It’s a reminder that airports were usually drab and uncomfortable.
I think the heyday of the air hand-dryers was like 15-20 years ago, where often you couldn’t find real towels. Now you can at least usually get real paper towels in airport bathrooms. Remember those old cloth roller towels that would go in a loop and somehow “clean” themselves? Yuck! Public bathrooms have always been gross, it seems some are deliberately having selective memories.
Airport food and drinks were always expensive, but now practically everyone brings those huge cooler flasks with them and fills them up. So not sure what he means that ...
I first critiqued this terrible take by looking at how food has actually improved substantially. Even though I said the same could be done in every category, people said “you’re only doing food.” So let’s do air travel and see why it’s not gotten better, not worse.
▪️Aircraft have greatly improved. Just 15-20 years ago, many domestic routes (~15%) were flown by turboprops like the Brasilia, Dash 8 or Saab. Now, almost everything is in jets, and most aircraft have WiFi. Some even have Starlink, where you probably have faster WiFi than your home. Most major airlines offer dozens or hundreds of movies and shows to watch.
▪️Newer designs like the 787 have lower cabin altitudes and improved humidity, which make a huge difference in passenger comfort on long haul flights. The first/business class international market has gotten very competitive globally, with many carriers offering excellent service and amenities. Pods, suites, showers, etc. Coach still sucks but is dramatically cheaper ...
This is the complete opposite of an empirical fact. The right has now joined the left in being pessimistic about the modern world and completely unappreciative of the amazing abundance we now have. I’ll just focus on food here, but you could do it for almost every category.
▪️Fresh produce used to be available only in season. In the winter it was canned or frozen. People used to send fruit for Christmas gifts, it was that much of a luxury good. Now, you can get giant, sweet berries year around in every grocery store. Corn on the cob in February. Not to mention once rare items like dragon fruit, heirloom tomatoes or baby bok choy.
▪️If you didn’t live on the coast, seafood was either not available, frozen, or extremely expensive. If you lived in the Midwest and traveled to coastal locales you would quite literally be able to eat food you had never seen. Salmon has become much more abundant and accessible. You can get fresh ahi at Walmart today. Sushi and oyster bars exist everywhere ...
