There’s an even deeper issue, not just for art, for all things.
The majority of artists, and of all other groups, are in fact mediocre with mediocre virtues, so enough incentives would turn most of them into Whatever shillers like the post describes.
So a non expert cannot easily determine, even if they do stumble upon “Serious art” by happenstance, whether it’s just another empty scheme or indeed someting more serious.
Maybe if they spend several hours puzzling over the artist’s background, incentives, network, claims, past works, etc… they can be 99% sure. But almost nobody likes any particular piece of work that much upon first glance, to put in that much effort.
The majority of artists, and of all other groups, are in fact mediocre with mediocre virtues, so enough incentives would turn most of them into Whatever shillers like the post describes.
So a non expert cannot easily determine, even if they do stumble upon “Serious art” by happenstance, whether it’s just another empty scheme or indeed someting more serious.
Maybe if they spend several hours puzzling over the artist’s background, incentives, network, claims, past works, etc… they can be 99% sure. But almost nobody likes any particular piece of work that much upon first glance, to put in that much effort.