For Art's Sake

Back in early June, when we were in KL, we spent one rather jolly evening mooching around a small art gallery somewhere in Brickfields. Essentially we were there to give a bit of moral support to one of the artists - Noi's younger sister Rozanah who's more than a bit handy as a potter and is now trying to strike out on her own and build a career in that line. The general jollity of the evening was due in no small part to the more than obvious talents of all the young artists on display in a very funky little place (tucked away on Cross Street, as I remember.) I could have lived with almost any of the pieces on view and it was good to see quite a few being snapped up by the KL cognoscenti - including a few by our very own potter.

So it was even more irritating than it normally might have been, and it's irritating enough as it stands, to hear from the missus how her sister was asked by a curator of some exhibition or other to provide some of her work, duly obliged, having spent a good deal of her ready cash (of which there's not a lot) for her materials, only to be told that her work was no longer required. I don't know all the background to the episode, and I'm glad I don't as I suspect I'd get even more angry, but I smell the none-too-subtle odour of exploitation here - fueled by the mythology that artists are somehow so dedicated to their muse that the cash doesn't matter.

This is why I can't join Joe Public in his occasional bouts of outrage over how much the Damien Hursts of this world take the system for. More power to their artistic elbows, say I. (I think my wife's sister is more talented than he is, by the way, but what do I know?)