Art Makes Me Angry

I’m standing in front of a wall. It’s big, bright, and mostly empty. Two framed pictures hang on it. I’m trying to focus as much as possible, but it doesn’t change the fact that they’re just a few stick figures drawn on white canvases. They stare back at me, a sun in the corner, some grass on the ground. Everything’s black and white. The gallery owner looks bored, typing apathetically on her iPad. Connoisseurs, patrons, and buyers buzz around me. Art makes me angry. People linger in front of the installations, talking about what they see, discussing, praising, and criticizing. They debate what the artist was thinking with this color, this material, this angle.

While some guy jerks off on a screen behind me, I’m staring at stick figures. The price? Around $2,000. I wonder if it would be worth ripping it off the wall and beating the gallery owner with it until someone answers the one question I have: What? Then I feel like a Fox News viewer who votes for xenophobes but masturbates to photos of his underage niece. Anyone who doesn’t appreciate art turns into a junk food-eating, lettuce-avoiding redneck with a Windows PC at home. They would rather watch soccer than go to a museum, choose sugar over vegetables, beer over wine, and vulgarity over muses. Too stupid for art, too conventional for beauty.

I love the art world. The magazines, the books, the cocktails, the chatter, the prices, and the girls with burlap bags wandering galleries on Sundays. It’s just the art itself I don’t get. But isn’t that the whole point? The people in this parallel universe dress better than most Fashion Week attendees. The big, bright buildings that were once train stations, workshops, or factories now serve as an alternate reality to a world torn by war, hate, and poverty. And they’re beautiful. They flood my mind, energize me, spark memories, joy, and a good deal of hate. Why? I ask myself. How? I wonder. Where? I think. And especially: What are you trying to tell me?