Before we start I’ll mention that I was honored to be interviewed on the podcast Ten Thousand Heroes. The host, Ankur, makes me blush a little – “Crystal Beasley is a trip. She’s a high priestess of the heart and listening to her journey is the auditory equivalent of getting tickled (for me) at least.”
Many of you aren’t artists, so I must first make the case for why art is critical to unpicking the lock of why so many of our leaders are narcissists.
Art pushes our culture forward. Great art introduces discussions into the cultural mainstream about uncomfortable concepts such as misogyny and police violence against minorities. Great art makes great stories unforgettable.
See the heartbreaking and breathtaking solo show by Kehinde Wiley at the De Young which included the voices of the mothers of unarmed men who were killed for the crime of walking out their front door.
Art made by women and those holding marginalized identities isn’t usually considered good art by the academies and galleries that decide such things. Sometimes it’s not even considered art at all. Far more often than not it isn’t exhibited at the same level of prominence as that from its equally-qualified peers.
When women’s voices aren’t allowed to be a part of the cultural commentary via art, we end up with societies run by narcissists. Women undeniably critique those narcissists. They expose the emperor as having no clothes. The problem is that the social media distribution channels suppress such revolutionary messaging since that’s bad for advertising sales. The galleries are selling to rich men who are mostly narcissists, and those men aren’t buying feminist work. It’s an insidious ouroboros.
Women create social change that unseats those in positions of unaccountable power.
So why haven’t we?
Ladies, I’m talking to you. We’ve been waiting for powerful men to give us the key to our prison. They will not. They actually can’t. Here’s why – they don’t have that key. They are largely not going to come up to a higher standard of behavior until we stop giving them our power.
We must stop having sex with people who do not have the skills and/or willingness to witness our pain, honor our stories, and promote our work. I wish it wasn’t that banal, but it is.
The women of Iceland created better equality of pay by shutting down the country. They went on strike from sex, from doing housework, childcare, going to work, etc. Guess what… it worked and it continues to work to this day. They have one of the most equal societies on the planet.
Women have a seat at the table there. If the men forget this, they shut down the country again. You better bet those women are listened to by men. Those men have experienced the very real consequences of dismissing their concerns.
Ladies, we must free ourselves. We must stop believing any lies that are stopping us from doing so. Yes, this is a revolutionary act. The very existence of women is revolutionary to a system that denies our humanity.
These lies were programmed into us by a hyper-competitive culture that runs on the continual transfer of life force from women to men. Single, childless women are the happiest group of people on the planet. A man lives longer when he is in a relationship with a woman. She, however, lives a shorter, unhappier lifespan than her single peers. Married men get paid more to boot.
This is just the math of what’s up on planet Earth in 2023. Are you ready for this to change? I, for one, do not wish to remain single and quite like men, but it will not be anyone’s mama.
Let’s fill in the essential missing pieces of our history.
History is written by the victor.
–Winston Churchill
Last week, I mentioned the piece that is widely credited as the first piece of conceptual art – The Fountain. Our own Heather Watts pointed out to me that it’s now been reported by The Guardian, The Financial Times, and Independent that he stole credit for this work. The Fountain was never his at all.
The Tate, where the piece is housed, continues to parrot the status quo, despite all this press and evidence. They absolutely could tell the true story. They choose not to still, in 2023.
What a shame, since the untold story turns out to be hella fascinating.
So what really happened?
I’ve never seen any substance to this piece until I knew the context and intent of the artist, Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. This piece tells the story of her intergenerational trauma – her father was cheating on her mother. Her mother died quite early due to a urinary infection caused by an STI, and she knew it.
The urinal is her representation of the smoking gun, karmically speaking.
Doesn’t that give it an entirely different sheen? There’s no substance to the piece if you situate it in the context of Duchamps. This piece isn’t about thumbing your nose at beauty as I had always thought.
Duchamps adds no story to the piece because there is no backstory. He had no intent when he created it because he did not create it. All the subtlety and commentary is gone. The concept of the conceptual art itself is missing.
The beauty of the intent of her work was stripped by a liar and a narcissist. Not coincidentally, he became known as the father of conceptual art.
What an ironic load of bollocks.
It’s time to reconceive the conceptual, my friends. Let’s drop the pretext that we have no power, no voice, no yes, no no, no recognition, and no support to do our work.
The Fountain is considered “anti-art.” It’s the answer to the question – what happens if you give no fucks about beauty? What happens if you dismiss the truth, authority, and dignity of women?
The answer has to become this:
When you dismiss us, there are consequences.
Ladies, gentlemen, my trans and non-binary friends… we can do better. We will be seen. We will be felt. We will say no to the bullshit they want us to do for them.
Let’s get going.
One more thing before we go – I dunno if you’ve noticed, but there are SO many snake oil salesmen in the publishing industry. Do you want to get your book out to the audience it’s meant to serve instead of being 41,502nd on the Amazon rank? Right, you’re going to need some superb help from someone who knows the biz and frankly, isn’t a fraud.
Enter my dear MeiMei Fox, a 2x NYT bestseller, long-time Forbes contributor, and friend. She’s offering a free 30-minute download on these common questions.
How to establish a writing habit, even if you don’t love to write
Tips to structure your book for success, and captivate your audience
The pros and cons of traditional publishing vs. hybrid and self-publishing
How to approach a literary agent (and what you’ll need to have ready)
Ways you might promote your book during publication and beyond
For subscribers – the raw audio which inspired this piece. I sent it to one of our benefactors, Buster, where I let it all hang out.
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