"Well of course I wasn't paying attention," said Bill.
He was staning on my foot, and looking around at the bad paintings around the room. According to the program, this was the single largest collection of the worst paintings available in America today. Of course they had to obligatory Pollock, just to appease the critics, but the rest of it was real proper garbage. The walls were crammed with paintings; my first impression was that a child could have done them, but upon closer inspection they were clearly the work of adults. Attempted symbolism was rampant and the sheer number of "baby-as-bowl of fruit" still lifes was agonizing. As I walked through, I could hear the everyman putting on airs, trying to be the artiste. And you've never seen so many bad paintings of the Madonna with Sean Penn. Somebody thought the Mother of God and Madonna Ciccone's first husband would be a funny pairing. Then everyone else thought it too. That was in the '80s. Today, it's just hack. I won't even go into the internet art. Yes, being able to self-publish is nice because it takes out the editor and allows the artist more free range, but there's a little thing called taste that goes right out the window with it. A thousand blinking lights told me there was more to go.
I didn't heed the sign that said "Bad Art Exhibition." I thought it was a joke. Learn from my mistake. Don't let it happen to you.