I would like to draw attention to the incredible collective work of humanity in creating this piece of heartbreaking, dystopian immersive art we are all now living in. Our planet is dying while we take selfies. Animals are choking on our trash and chemicals. Overpopulation is destroying life on this planet... hey, where's my uber??
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I'm generally excited this article and it's reminded me to go catch some of the shows I've missed this year, but I'm frustrated to see a soccer player make the short list of great art and artists from 2018. Was there not enough art to chose from?
I know very little about soccer/football, but I know calling Mr. Mbappe "the most polished French artist since Matisse" is nonsensical, because he is a soccer player. (To say nothing about the countless French artists since Matisse) He sounds supremely talented and inspiring in many ways, but in calling him an artist, the implication is that his actual professional title of soccer player is not good enough to warrant the attention of an art critic. One can be both transcendent and not an artist. This is an art world tendency I see occasionally, to elevate art laypeople by assigning them the hallowed title of artist. It reminds me of when my parents would comment on the music I listened to when I was a kid, by saying something like "this is more than rap music, this is poetry." This is doubly arrogant because it suggests the subject can't be fully evaluated on its own terms, but only in the language of supposed high culture. It also goes to cast the critic as so enlightened enough as to discover value in supposed low culture.
Art is art and everything else is everything else, and that's OKAY.
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@Jonathan Mosca I am somewhat inclined to agree with you but, then again, maybe everybody just got trolled by Jason Farago.
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I always wonder, when it comes to serious writing, why the world always has to be divided in "winners and losers". There's no such a thing as winners and losers when it comes to art! Maybe we could say that there's some great contributions and less great ones, and yet, that would be, in many ways, a matter of opinion when it comes to criticism. But speaking in such terms is not only narrow but out of touch with the dynamics of art in the 21st century and with what history (art history that is) has taught us. And specially for the NYT, a very progressive newspaper which always seems to aim for high standards of reporting the world.
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@Gaudencio Fidelis
It's winners and losers because art is just a commodity like everything else in this society, people most definitely included. Many of these pieces will sit in a vault, unseen and unappreciated until they are once again put on the market. At least the robber barons of yesteryear chose to surround themselves with their plunder, rather than storing it like gold bricks in the dungeon. On the other hand, with some of these works, maybe its just as well.