Oh even going to a top school isn't a ticket to acceptance.
In Los Angeles there is an amazing amount of disdain between the two top art schools Art Center College of Design ("commercial sellouts!") and the Otis Art Institute ("Picasso wannabees!").
Art is incredibly elitist at many levels, but those who just do unmade beds really find it difficult to keep coming up with "clever" ideas and keep their patrons fooled. While who you know does have an impact on getting into galleries, that's not the only venue for getting your art out there, and if its really good and you look for the right opportunities, someone with some actual taste is going to like it eventually.
It is all about marketing though!
And ultimately that means that for unexplainable, effemeral reasons, your art has to trigger the "I like that one" in a significant number of people in order to 1) be successful and 2) be considered "real art."
The bottom line for me is that when anyone says "that's not art," whether I agree with them about that particular work or not, I instantly react with the opinion that that person really doesn't understand art.
Art has to make that connection with some number of people, but I'll tell you, I know people who like those black-lighted velvet Elvis's and card-playing dogs. Are those not art? If it touches *somebody* isn't it art?
No art touches everyone, it's just more or fewer.
Maybe someone likes those unmade beds. Let them "waste" their money on it if they so choose. Let St. Peter refuse them entry into Heaven for their folly if it's truly egregious to like such stuff!
Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep,
Buffy
