17 Comments
deletedAug 2, 2022Liked by Jennifer Rabin
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Aug 2, 2022Liked by Jennifer Rabin

Great article. The art world gave up on standards a long time ago when Duchamp put a urinal on the wall and called it art.

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Aug 2, 2022Liked by Jennifer Rabin

👍

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Aug 2, 2022Liked by Jennifer Rabin

Jennifer, I so appreciate your perspective and the way you ground your arguments. Thank you for so clearly addressing this BS with Depp's "art" and for calling out the gatekeepers for being completely capital-driven, having lost all integrity. Of course the public has no idea of how to value art or artists! What kills me is how artists value themselves and each other through the lens of capitalism and become additional gatekeepers, hoarding opportunities and space.

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Aug 3, 2022Liked by Jennifer Rabin

While I was considering dropping $4,840 on a J. Depp touched up digital picture, I thought a $60 subscription to your newsletter was a better deal tonight.

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Aug 3, 2022Liked by Jennifer Rabin

What a great companion piece to the one two weeks ago (“Rich People Are Doing It Wrong”). While I will always champion anyone (everyone) pursuing any creative endeavor that moves them, these cynical manipulations of the market/public for the sake of celebrity/status/greed don’t add anything to our collective experience and make it all the harder for people who make art and really need support in order to keep doing it.

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If you look up images of "Keith Richards smoking", for example, you'll find identical images to what Depp likely used to color in. Even the Keith Richards in profile was copied exactly from a photograph, although more possible to have been fully (and poorly) copied by Depp's own hand and not something he simply added color to.

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LOUDER for the hacks in the back! Thank you for this article. I saw an ad was so insulted it sent me on a mission to see if I was the only one who found this incredibly insulting to the art community. You brought up many of the points that were really grating me about this whole thing. This is truly Dunning–Kruger effect at its finest.

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Love this.

What is the opinion of his non-commercialized efforts at art. I.e the Keith Richard’s portrait? Or the elephant (yikes)

I’ve seen something he painted for himself of Marlon Brando and I thought it stunning.

Interested in the opinion of his work/art that’s not been obviously commercialized bc he needed some income after his career woes.

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Love this.

What is the opinion of his non-commercialized efforts at art. I.e the Keith Richard’s portrait? Or the elephant (yikes)

I’ve seen something he painted for himself of Marlon Brando and I thought it stunning.

Interested in the opinion of his work/art that’s not been obviously commercialized bc he needed some income after his career woes.

Expand full comment