Essay of little or no significance #3: Art

Discussion of contemporary art is deliberately opaque and inaccessible to those outside an elite inner circle. Artists and art critics are rewarded for discussing - and are encouraged to discuss - artwork with an increasingly obscure nomenclature that immediately excludes lay participation. In most cases, culprits are guilty, at best, of the sloppy use of inappropriate words and phrases and a failure to fully understand their own messages. At worst, they are guilty of being deliberately confusing and misleading. As a result, amateurs are discouraged from expressing opinions about art by faux intellectual barriers that deny the legitimacy of the reactions it can invoke.

From “Challenging the Perception of Visual Space and Other Meaningless Accusations”, Paul Colpitts (2008).