the politics of what other people think, 3

I went to sleep with this quote from the Serra interview ringing in my head:

I think the great thing about Warhol was his cynical, critical banality of conversing with the media. Warhol’s provocation is lost now and has been replaced by a superficial simulation of banality; that is banality for banality’s sake where everybody’s in on the meta-joke. Only the meta-joke of art about art can become tiresome real quick. Cynicism has been replaced with sentimentality. The problem with a lot of work today is its predictability. Its only allusion is to something we already know; it reframes, or re-references the known over and over again. It can’t possibly give us the same kind of inventive diversity and fulfillment and complex evolution of the formal language of art that invention can provide. I find it interesting that there’s no post-modernism that doesn’t deal with re-representation.

I'm sure that everyone is not in on the Meta-Joke. Warhol built a somber cathedral in the middle of the emptiness and banality of american culture. As long as what the Times actually prints is not negative, there is no concern whatsoever for the quality of the actual criticism. It is merely a public relations vehicle and that is something for which everyone of these artists we're always complaining about is longing. As Warhol said, publicity is like popcorn.

They reject criticism like they reject art. Not something Serra does at all. Certainly not something Warhol did, though he may have only ever discussed it with his mother or his closest companion. As Mindsprinter says, of Serra, in the comments below:

He's really done his homework in terms of thinking about his concept in terms of his materials and how that fits into the greater dialogue of art (and his own personal narrative), which is all about seeing through the fashion-fickle market machine of any given timeframe and beelining to the steadfast, eternal conditions/principles.

I don't see that anywhere else in the "white-hot market" and it does make me wonder that no one else is studying art. Does it really really piss off these MFA instructors that the cocktale party advice and tips on "who to know" really accounts for very little? The point maybe I am trying to make is that even a hint toward some sort of principle is usually enough to make good art. Public relations, scandal, trend, all of those things that fit under the empty umbrella of the fake media world are things that artists should avoid. There is nothing realistic about seeking publicity for a fraudulent product, about performing for a media circus that is against reality. Principles? What should yours be ?