I recently had a conversation with a friend who visited Frieze Art Fair in London last year, drawn by claims of an environmental ethic underlying some of the work on show there. But what she found were mostly works expressing violence, anger, depression and nihilism. Shocked by this preponderance of negativity, ugliness and banality my friend asked me what I thought it said about the nature of the arts in the world today.
Having thought long and hard about this question, I think the answer may be found if we look at our society as if it were a person. If one were to analyse the psyche of the ...
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