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The Art School that I attended [2000-2004] placed the thinking/writing of Dave Hickey squarely at the center of its belief-framework because [I think] it appeals to a pragmatic need for cynicism and a totalizing gaze when considering the ‘what the fuck is going on?’ situation.

[I'm going to make a brief aside here as I point out that this defense-strategy was one of the only tools that my education gave me for 'dealing' with the real world of art. I'd love to hear additional strategies if they exist.]

Hickey has that personable wise-man from the woods way about him that when regarding the common hierarchies of social-art-relations is terribly pleasant [similar to your favorite uncle, whom tortures you with tickling]. And as much as I don’t want to like his position in the history of art thought, he does bring up a lovely lineage of troublesome support-system relationships that pervade the field of art practice [troublesome mostly from the artists' perspective].

It’s clear that practicing art in an idealistic and ‘pure’ fashion is becoming more difficult and complicated by the second. I personally have no idea what the overproduction of art students is going to do with the art world, nor do I have any idea of whether or not art is sustainable enough to survive within the hyper-development of our attention economy. I suppose we’ll look to our wizards [like Mr. Hickey] to show us the way as we continue to try and calm our neurosis and keep walking down the eerie path of solitude.

Below are four embedded video’s of Dave Hickey talking. If they don’t work on this site, please follow this link.

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