Brutal, but I couldn't agree more. Sure, by exception it's possible for one to have a deep emotional connection to a piece of art or the artist, but in general

Brutal, but I couldn't agree more. Sure, by exception it's possible for one to have a deep emotional connection to a piece of art or the artist, but in general I don't think anybody is curious at all beyond it looking good/bad. As for critique on society by means of art, we're past the age where any of it would be original or shocking. Any critique you might have we can read about on social media every day. It's the norm, nothing out of the ordinary. It's so normalized that even the threat of a total societal collapse fails to impress. I once found myself in a modern art museum (against my will). We entered a giant empty room with 3 beach chairs in the far corner. In the next room was a wrangled and damaged piece of steel sitting on the floor. In both cases the tour guide questioned us as to what we believe the meaning of these works are. So now you have a bunch of adults looking at garbage yet complying with the social pressure to pretend that any of this is sane or interesting. You'll fake the genuinely curious but puzzled face, comply with the minimum thinking time to signal that you did some deep soul searching, and make the random guess. Which is correct, because art is whatever it means to YOU. We were looking at a mirror all along. Life-changing, really. As in, never again.