A bike rack designed by David Byrne (photo by Flickr user zombieite)

A bike rack designed by David Byrne (photo by Flickr user zombieite)

David, I received your missive in my Facebook feed. You know, the one where you pseudo-declare, “I Don’t Care About Contemporary Art Anymore?” The one where you complain that the art on view in the galleries you “peruse … when I return from jogging” are failing to raise your curiosity. You write, “I realize that I have begun to view the work itself as being either intentionally or unconsciously produced expressly to cater to the 1%.” You complain that the work is simply “inoffensive tchotchkes for billionaires and the museums they fund.” You say, “It’s sad.” And then you go on to complain about Damien Hirst, the loss of irony, and the cost and size of abstract art. Boo hoo, fuck off.

But first, I have three thoughts to share with you.

The first is a simple point of order. While I appreciate the solidarity with Occupy sensibilities, you don’t get to invoke anti-1% rhetoric while having an estimated net worth of $40+ million. And while it pains me that Axl Rose, Jimmy Buffet, and (ugh) Dave Matthews all have larger net worths than the man who took America post-punk and kept that anti-corporate sensibility in his pop music, when you are worth $40+ million dollars, you no longer get to complain about the rich as if they are some other species. Noblesse oblige, motherfucker.

Second, you don’t get to declare yourself an “outsider” unless you are actually an outsider. “I used to feel I could vicariously participate even if I was often viewed as an outsider,” you write. “The artists were always welcoming and eager to hang and talk about things with me.”  Perhaps you’ve forgotten that your visual art is represented by Pace/MacGill Gallery, one of the world’s most powerful; you studied at RISD; you’ve exhibited at Colette in Paris, Pulse Miami, in Italy, in Tokyo … You have an art résumé most artists I know would kill a small dog to get. And I know dozens of art centers across North America and Europe that would be more than happy to build an entire program where you can engage in a vigorous “forum for ideas and feelings about the world we live in.” All you would have to do is show up. They would probably pay your way.

I agree with you that contemporary art has a problem, and that problem is the obscene amount of money passing through a globalized and elite corner of the art world. As an active member of said art world, I was embarrassed by the crap that came out of art fair week in Miami last year. I felt the heavy burden of “how am I going to explain this shit” when Damien Hirst unloaded his idiotic dots onto the world. I put up with awful museum curation that is little more than asset enhancement for private art collections that will be unloaded at auction houses a few years later. And I watch oil barons stock private art museums in old dairy barns with the saddest laundry list of safe, contemporary works and wonder how someone spending so much money on so much art could learn so little from it. Yes, the world is fucked up, and the art world is a reflection of that.

But that brings me to my third point. “The galleries in Chelsea, on the west side of Manhattan” in the “zone of luxury condos” where you live are a tiny sample of the art world. They may be that part of the art world that everybody talks about; whose exhibitions get reviewed in glossy art magazines; from whom museums acquire new work — they may be the center of the art universe, but they are a minuscule part of it. Let me tell you about the one-armed punk chick who sews art dolls and sells them at Frenchmen Art Market in New Orleans. Let me tell you about the sculptor in Vermont whose constructions sing the entropy of the rust belt. Let me tell you about the painter in Maine whose landscapes are a bridge between 19th-century Romanticism and 20th-century Modernism, landscapes that speak to a 21st-century way of seeing. Let me tell you about the nonrepresentational painter in New Jersey whose colorful paintings speak to the microcosmic/macrocosmic tension of contemporary life. Let me tell you about the gallery in Portland, Oregon, that’s closing after a three-year run of exhibiting some of the most compelling collage and assemblage work being made today. Let me tell you about the curator whose website sells beautiful, witty, smart contemporary artwork for less than $1,000. Let me tell you about walking into an installation in a gallery in Montreal, turning to my partner, and, for the first time, being able to explain, “this is how my brain works.” Let me tell you about the art that makes me angry, makes me cry, makes me feel like there is still hope for this world, and then let’s go to Provincetown or Harrisburg or Taos or Seattle and see it.

I am over hearing from people within jogging distance of the Chelsea galleries that the whole of contemporary art is over; that art is no longer emotionally or intellectually fulfilling; that art is too expensive even for millionaires. I’m done reading articles titled “Why Does So Much New Abstraction Look the Same?,” written by people who haven’t figured out that Manhattan has bridges and tunnels and a subway. And I’m tired of pretending that a global elite has a monopoly on the expression of “ideas and feelings,” when there are thousands of people working every day outside of that slipstream as proof otherwise. So David, please, take your head out of your ass and your ass out of New York. Or, to quote you, “Here’s your ticket pack your bag: time for jumpin’ overboard / The transportation is here … ”

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Ric Kasini Kadour

Ric Kasini Kadour is a writer, artist, and former gallerist. He publishes Kolaj, a printed international...

50 replies on “I Don’t Care About David Byrne Anymore?”

  2. This is just a bunch of misplaced “kill the messenger” anger. Nothing in Byrne’s post hasn’t already been said by Brooklyn artists like me living on peanut butter, critics writing in glossies, or well heeled collectors who see the inflated market, including fairs, as distorting the way art is made, for the worse. The inferences you draw from Byrnes’ quotes are also fallacious and inaccurate. Example: Byrne didn’t “declare [himself] an ‘outsider’” as you wrote; he said “I was often viewed as an outsider [because he works mostly in music].” Likewise, his net worth does not preclude him from commenting on the relationship between the 1/% and art production. You don’t have any special privileged position to discuss the 1% because you are part of the 99%. You are just more self-righteous because you feel shafted. That doesn’t transfer into insight.

    You want people to go to Seattle to see art. Meanwhile, artists in Seattle want to show in Chelsea, rather than Seattle, or move from Seattle to NYC. Why is that?

    1. 99troy: your response is both understood and, i think, misdirected. if
      read as you did, i’d agree; however, byrne is claiming a outlier
      position when he is substantially part of the norm, which is illustrated
      by the information provided and his position of being “in the know” in
      order to comment. he, regardless of position, needs no defense; artists
      beyond the pink and pale, who he pays no mind, are the very folks we
      ought to and should bring into the greater conversation. (disclosure: i am
      not an artist, nor musician)

    2. When I visit there I don’t see a lot of interesting new artist as I see in LA for example, but artist we still want to show there because perhaps we can sell for more money (not sure if it’s a good art market for me, because I am not doing abstractionism/ minimalism).

      Still NYC still wants to live to the name that it brought abstractionism to the art world, they are stuck! Hence, Byrne and Jerry Saltz boredom with the galleries of Chelsea. Indeed, same art for breakfast, lunch and dinner …

  4. I pass by this bike rack thingy (on Wall Street) every day after work on the way to the bus. A used coffee cup has been attached to it for at least two years. Also, this article is great.

  5. I don’t understand the author’s POV. How does David Byrne’s personal
    wealth undermine his opinions about the corrosive effects of money on the art
    world in New York? Byrne wasn’t born rich, and I think the author is being
    unfair to him. The fact that Byrne has money now doesn’t disqualify him from
    having an opinion about the negative influence of money on the NY art world any
    more than Paul Krugman’s probable wealth disqualifies him from writing about
    income inequality in America. It seems to me that the author doesn’t really
    disagree with Byrne’s opinions, he just resents the fact that Byrne is the one
    delivering them.

  6. So forget David Byrne had ever written that article. Let’s analyze the state of the art world as it is. You said it yourself, The galleries in Chelsea are the part of the world everyone is talking about. Why does everyone talk about it? Why do they get so much visibility? Because of money. Will places like MOMA ever put that Sculptor from Vermont or that Painter from Maine in an exhibition? When LACMA decided it wanted to install a huge light installation in front of their museum, did they find an experimental, under-represented artist to build something for them? No, They paid Chris Burden $11 million for his installation. How many projects could they have put on by young or less institutionally recognized artists for that amount? A LOT. Museums are meant to represent culture, but the culture the majority of them represent is a culture of money because money is what makes art visible (New Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum makes this all too obvious). It makes art visible because the art market is an EMBLEM OF CAPITALISM! That is the heart of David Byrne’s article. Money dictates visibility and power, which dictates the kind of art that is in the public eye (which is why all abstract paintings look the same), which dictates why Jeff Koons (who has bankrupted a couple fabrication businesses without batting an eye–hey man its ok its just business) had a major retrospective at the Whitney. There are thousands of artists in america deserving of visibility and monetary support (even if its not in the millions or hundreds of thousands). Its great to have galleries that sell art work for less than $1000, but its abnormal. And even in selling for under $1000, the art is still tied to making money, its just making less money. How do we support and encourage artists that make art work that has no market value? Sure there are grants out there, but they are typically small for young artists, certainly not enough to support oneself while making art work. So then the young artist has to get a job. Teaching? Highly competitive and necessitates an MFA (how much do those cost?). And, most schools looking to hire an artist to teach aren’t looking for the best teachers, they are looking for the most visible artists. The fucked up monetary visibility of the art world is the same as the fucked up monetary visibility of celebrity culture, is the same as the fucked up monetary visibility of politics and corporate interests. ITS CAPITALISM. Rather than attacking David Byrne, we should be attacking capitalism. We should be attacking the monetary nepotism/cronyism of the art world (and really the entirety of america). You’re right, the “global elite” (what you really mean here is the “global rich”) don’t have a monopoly on feelings and ideas. But they do have a monopoly on the visibility of those feelings and ideas, and how those feelings and ideas are supported.

    3. In my experience, telling someone to fuck off is an attack…. As well as telling someone to take their head out of their ass. Furthermore, I would consider arguing that his net worth excludes him from criticizing financial systems is an attack on character that has nothing to do with the argument. The author then writes, “you don’t get to declare yourself an ‘outsider’ unless you actually are an outsider.” how is that anything other than an attack? The author has determined the definition of “outsider” and is telling Byrne how he should consider himself based on this definition. But really what I’m getting at here is that this article has nothing to do with the nature of Byrne’s article. I’m not playing off of Byrne’s article, I’m elaborating on and highlighting the deeper meaning in Byrne’s article and criticizing this response article for directing focus away from the discussion of how money determines art (which is way more important than whether or not Byrne is an outsider, or whether he’s part of the 1%, or even what the other art worlds in America look like). Its not productive–in fact its counter productive to criticize tangential and minute details of an article or an author, especially when the specter of Neo-Liberal, Late-Capitalism rears its ugly head. The art world is fucked up! We all seem to agree, but telling someone to fuck off is not the answer! Better to ask, how the fuck are we gonna fix it?!

  7. It’s curious that you seem to think you’ve refuted anything that Byrne wrote. And, as others have pointed out, you don’t have the privilege of handwaving Byrne’s opinions away simply because he has more money than you, lives in a more valuable home, or shows his work in a famous gallery.

    You launch into the “Let me tell you abouts” while really telling us nothing new or substantive. So, you know some artists (or perhaps “artists”) who offer their work for low prices? Congratulations. How many of them actually aspire to sell it for considerably more? All of them, I’d guess. The “painter in Maine” you cite (Henry Isaacs) already sells his work in galleries, and for anywhere between $1,000 and $10,000; well out of the price-range of the proletariat. (And BTW, his work isn’t “the bridge between 19th-century Romanticism and 20th-century Modernism” by any stretch; it’s exactly the same as work turned out by, for example, members of the “Society of Six” in California in the 1920s-’30s.)

    But really, your post isn’t about Byrne; after all, he’s just describing the patient’s symptoms. Your post is really about your frustration with the increasingly complex terrain of art and how so many artists, art consumers and viewers feel anomie and disaffection. It’s a frustration shared by many, including Byrne (and myself). And while there is no single or simple cure for the these ills, there’s also no future in pointing at another doctor, accusing *him* of being the problem, and telling him to “fuck off”.

  8. Your article is a simple ad hominem attack, and an extremely rude one at that.

    Separate the message from the messenger. Are the criticisms of the art world given by Byrne (and others) valid or not?

  9. Seems these days there’s a lot of people (I’ll refrain from calling them pigmies to avoid accustions of racism, or midgets to avoid charges of sizism) who want to try to bring David Byrne to big themselves up (for another example: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2013/10/15/david-byrne/). Glad to see so many people see through the ploy. Efforts to portray Byrne as out of touch and irrelevant just emphasize his ongoing importance. I appreciate you calling attention to Byrne’s thoughtful essay with your less thoughtful one. I just went and liked Byrne on Facebook, and if you are getting out of the following David Byrne business, that’s fine, just leaves more David Byrne for the rest of us.

    A couple of specifics; Noblesse oblige means just about the opposite of what you seem to think it means. Adding the obscenity just underscores the humor. “then let’s go to Provincetown or Harrisburg or Taos or Seattle and see it.” Presumably on Byrne’s dime? Carefree travel is beyond the means of many Americans these days – be careful how you wave that stick around, you might hit your own face with it.

  10. Wow, did I see this coming. How about refraining from the obvious before you write. Just because David Byrne has tons of money – enough to participate in the speculative art investment game – doesn’t mean his comments are colored by his income stream. In fact, if you think for half a second, it makes him more qualified. The reason is because he could easily be a regular participant in this ridiculous game, and he has chosen not to participate. Clearly, he laments the turn contemporary art has taken.

    And Kadour also assumed that DB thinks Chelsea is the center of the art world. I doubt that Byrne really thinks this. Honestly, he may have a condo in the area, but is he really that provincial? I don’t know for sure, but I highly doubt this assumption. Anyway, the art world is aware of the fact that those who do art business in Chelsea have worked to foster this image over the past decade. Sure, artists from Detroit and Des Moines (or wherever artists work at whichever geographical margin) may be producing more sincere, better work (maybe), but the national (if not international) benchmark is Chelsea, NYC. This is the trickle-down point, for better or worse until an institutional and agreed-upon change is affected.

    I agree with DB. His eye does not seem overly jaundiced in his editorial. He’s a smart enough person to know who he is and what he has and where he lives. Still, the offerings are lamentable to him. This can’t be taken with the huge grain of salt that Kadour is offering.

  11. First: “they may be the center of the art universe, but they are a minuscule part of it.”… that may be true, but your list of other art & artists from other places aren’t being given much attention, and THAT is part of the issue at hand.

    Second: You sound very defensive frankly.

  12. Ric, I think you blew this one… I appreciate the effort and think we need this conversation. But, yeah – we are actually lucky to have a few people in the 1% wanting more and saying something about it. Seems like your picking a fight with your own teammate. simply because he has worked his way into the starting lineup. I lived in NY long enough and stopped walking through Chelsea because i would feel sick afterwards. And yes, there are people sewing dolls out there – but knocking Byrne for making an effort to stoke the dwindling fire? (please excuse any typos and grammar, watching a ballgame as I type… only using 99% percent of my brain)

  13. Hi I’m the “one armed punk chick” you mention. My names Al & if you want to see what I’m up to “like” my facebook art page: Beautiful Mutant Art by Al Benkin. I show assemblage paintings in galleries & vend my art dolls various places (yes still in the Frenchmen art market) p.s. i had an art exhibit in Chelsea & it was fantastic! http://www.AlBenkin.com

  14. Byrne was describing one particular art market, and I thought he was spot on about it. Other markets that artists participate in – e.g, the grant market, the academic market – have become way more competitive, as they have been practically defunded by federal, state, and local gov’ts due to political power struggles, decreased taxes on the wealthy, a diminishing middle class, etc. All these changes are rooted in politically and socially conservative platforms and policies. Further complicating the ability for the contemporary artist to make money is that art has progressively become less about the object and more about the experience, which makes it harder to sell in a gallery as an investment. Art has been sold as an investment way before the sea change we have seen in recent years in terms of the right-wing general assault on knowledge and creativity.

    Byrne was addressing what he sees in Chelsea, where he lives now and obviously sees more of than most people who read his blog. He sees how art-as-investment has completely taken over that market, whereas in the past, that market also seemed to have some sense of a critical eye. Byrne’s post could be summed up as “My neighborhood is now full only of crass super rich people giving each other hand jobs. Yuck.” In one respect, I agree with the author – it sounds like Byrne could get out more and see how the art world has changed, and the different art markets and art experiences that are out there.

    The way to support artists is not by attacking Byrne, but by changing government policy to directly funneling more money to artists (through grants and supporting state universities) and by raising the standard of living so we actually have a bigger middle class (raise minimum wage, increase taxes on the very wealthy, etc). People who are not scared about where their next meal is coming from in general will be more open to supporting the arts.

    1. My bigger issue is that Byrne is stating the obvious. This discussion about Chelsea is nothing and he parachutes in oblivious to a discussion that has been raging for almost a decade. Also, I assume he knew what he was doing when he came up with a title for his original post. He appears to see that as “contemporary art,” as opposed to blue-chip art or something more specific.

      1. Agreed, he sounds a bit clueless, and the effect is that people who are not involved in contemporary don’t really wind up with a clearer idea of what’s going on other than the very obvious problems, which as you said, have been raging for a while now. His article reads more like a lament than an articulated thought, and he should know better, though I have a hard time dissing him too much.

      2. I disagree, actually. A quote from Byrne…

        “The artists might be holding on to their integrity and be maintaining their distance from the dirty business of buying and selling, but I can no longer see it. The money and our distance from it is so much in the forefront now. I have to admit, abstract art suffers the most in this view, as it is so easy for it to be viewed as giant decorative objects—objects that carry high status and bear brand names as well. I know: some of these artists were making the work before all this happened; some struggled for years in relative obscurity, but all of that gets swept away in the tsunami of cash.”

        This is quite close to the discussion I, an abstract painter, was having with a friend, a realist painter, whose works takes months to make. As his young gallery enters the fair circuit, he is at a disadvantage to all the wham-bam abstraction out there because his work takes time to make and time to view. He can’t crank out work for fairs like lots of abstract painters can, nor are fair-goers going to spend sufficient time with his work, in that environment. Fairs are good for some art, bad for others. Byrne seems to be focusing on Chelsea, but that’s all the same. Lots of abstract painters, many of them terrible, can simply make more product, and that goes out the door quicker.

  15. I’m just going to second (third, forth… thirty?) the voices replying to this article.

    Don’t disagree with someone due to their status or name recognition. It’s cheap, lazy, and ill-conceived. Focus on the issues and try to make the art work a better, smarter place. Please?

    A majority of this piece is an ad hominem attack. When you craft some kind of 1% straw man who shouldn’t be talking about the state of money and art, you’ve already dismissed any room to discuss the topic. Was he right or wrong? Based on your premise, it doesn’t matter, because fuck guys with money and power.

    And what’s more, with what Byrne is labeling as contemporary art, you TOTALLY AGREED WITH HIM before your second and third “points”. Why even bother writing the article?

    Your only reasoned argument is that there is work in the world which is good, not a money grab, and that David Byrne hasn’t seen. That’s fine,if your article wasn’t muddied with so much other nasty slop. You can’t punish David Byrne for all the sins of the art world we contribute to.

  16. “Let me tell you about the sculptor in Vermont whose constructions sing the entropy of the rust belt….” No, please…don’t…but if uber-pretentious Artspeak is your thing, this might prove to be a real time-saver: http://www.artybollocks.com/ Enjoy! :D)

  18. Yeah but Byrne is critiquing the Chelsea art world, not the art world that exists in Maine or Montreal or Kentucky, so I don’t even get the point of this article. And just because you happen to be such an amazing artist/musician that you make it into the 1% doesn’t necessarily exclude you from being able to criticize the rest of the 1% when the rest of them are oil barons.

  20. Rich people get to talk about other rich people. They get to criticize each other. In fact they should do so as much as possible. Its the only way their behavior will change because most of them sure aren’t listening to the rest of us.

  21. Artists and hipsters probably exist to inflate real estate markets. real estate and rent income is one of the most steady high profit and secure growth sectors, thats no secret. artists move into shitty squalid buildings and crack neighborhoods, throw parties that attract people with disposable income, then come the hispter coffee shops, then police start showing up to protect the rich people, rents go through the roof, landlords get rich but feel empty and a need to be respected so they try to become a part of ‘society’ so they buy the ‘right’ hip new artists, which gives bait to non-hip artists and birth to more myths that penetrate all the layers of society until you get jokingly called ‘picasso’ at your job for making a doodle while on the phone. Hi David, although when I tried to talk to you once you ignored me.

  22. Okay, but you can’t mention the Frenchmen Art Market as if anyone there is selling contemporary art worth a shit.

    1. Um I disagree. There is some work that is not my cup of tea but I on occasion will bring my assemblage pieces that I usually save for gallery showings. I have seen some remarkable work there.

      3. Yes Lester if someone makes a rude comment about one of the many spots I show my art, I am going to counter it and show some of my work (I showed Contort at that night market). Why not? It’s a social media age after all.

  23. While I find Kadour’s article to be an angry, jealous, judgmental rant, I
    appreciate the discussion and remarks that ensued. So, I’m grateful to
    him for giving others the reason to speak up.

  24. Don’t forget the amazing art scene that is emerging in Denver, through the likes of the MCA, and Leon, Gildar, and Point Galleries.

  25. All I can say, is you better hope the rich people with intelligence, a sense of justice and an art IQ take on the rich bastards that don’t, because otherwise, we are truly fuc*ed.

  26. You make no real argument as to why someone with money can’t support movements such as the Occupy Movement or have a sensibility that favors the poor over the wealthy — or why someone exhibiting in high end galleries can’t have a valid critique of what is displayed in other galleries. You actually seem to agree with Byrne’s opinion to a large extent – and yet I infer you have written this to ride on his notoriety in the hopes that this will make your voice more relevant or interesting.

  27. Focusing so much on the whether the 1% is privileged enough to speak out against the 1%, which is only a small part of this article and not particularly relevant, is missing the mark a bit. The fact of Byrne’s wealth and fame is that, though he may be an art world outsider (a assertion that’s a bit hard to swallow considering that he had a long running relationship with one of the art worlds most prominent figures, Cindy Sherman), he remains an influential tastemaker with both the money and the clout to affect a significant degree of change in the art world.

    Rather than complaining about the direction that things have gone (and are continuing to go) why not seek out and promote artists who ‘move’ him? God knows Byrne has enough inside connections to start his own gallery, or even fund galleries who are willing to reject the current trajectories of the art market. If Byrne, alongside just a fraction of his wealthy and famous friends, decided to actually address the issue head on they could certainly become significant part of the conversation in a short amount of time.

    One of the ironies of this is that Byrne was dating a major artist whose career began in Buffalo, NY (with the artist-run CEPA Gallery, before teaming up with Robert Longo to start their own space called Hallwalls) a city whose non-existent commercial market has fostered a number of important artists over the past 40 years (Les Krims, Tony Conrad, John Pfahl, Joseph Piccilo, Jacob Kassay, and on and on). Sherman began Hallwalls as a reaction against what she perceived as a closed, insular, and elitist market/institutional setting back in the 70’s. Why not take a play from her book and do the same? These artist-run institutions have been helping to develop and foster artists for over 40years (and still going strong). Imagine what an influx of capital and PR could do from a major figure such as Byrne.

    There is plenty of opportunity to have a transformative art experience outside of NYC. If you jog around expecting art to just find you then you’ll have to settle for being disappointed. Art is for seekers.

    ps. If you find us we’ll even take the time to chat (as always…free of charge).

  28. To the defenders of Byrne. In sorry to burst your bubble, but in real life, he’s a jerk. Yes, talking heads were awesome. He has been an inspiration to weirdos everywhere, but now… Now he’s a rich asshole. He lives in a luxery condo, is served luxery food, and treats common people terribly. So I think the writer here is responding to the arrogance of the man making sweeping declarations about art in General when his only exposure to it is in his luxery neighborhood. And from his celebrity artist exgirlfriend. We all know the only reason he’s ever exhibited art is because his music fame alone will get people in the door. But he should not be a spokesman for art. He is not a populist. He is a self involved pop star millionare. The nice guy renaissance man is a fiction sorry to say.

    1. If you read the comments again, those defending Byrne are not saying he’s a nice guy. They are saying the author of this article is making a terrible argument against Byrne’s commentary on art. No one cares if Byrne is nice.

      1. Not only that but Byrne didn’t make “sweeping declarations about art in General” as jcl says. He talked about a specific market, and Kadour spent a whole paragraph AGREEING with Byrne. While spending a whole article personally attacking him. Then the last paragraph naming other artists to defend the fringe that Byrne never attacked in the first place. This is just a bizarre case of inability to read context.

  29. I think Byrne is perfectly entitled to talk about art, and say whatever his opinion is about it.

    I don’t think because he is a millionaire he cannot become sympathetic with the 99% which he doesn’t belong anymore, but still he was part of it at some point.

    Not everybody who have made money are ruthless greedy usurers with no soul. some people have made tons of money, become successful and still have keep it social conscious, still be human and help others too.

  30. What a weird rant. Paragraph five essentially agrees with the whole point of David Byrne’s article. Paragraph six and seven aim to defend the wider world of contemporary are that was never even remotely attacked in Byrne’s article. Even regarding the “high end” Chelsea-exhibited art he was talking about, Byrne said, “This is not necessarily a criticism of the artists—it’s about how my perception has changed.”

    The rest is personal attack against the guy you actually agree with, based on the odd idea that successful people aren’t allowed to have an opinion the influence of money on art. With some classy obscenity thrown in.

    Calm down.

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