Are you - artists and visitors - wondering if you're being played by an art illiterate?

We have scraped the surface of this question in chapter 4, where you antagonised your probable ignorance vs. my probable legitimacy in helping you wander The Blue Neon. I may have dismissed it rather bluntly at the time, but I would like to explain my position.

An extended number of parallel universes – just fancy words for online art platforms, they don’t define themselves as such, it’s just me digressing by using pompous vocabulary – proposing artworks for you to discover already exist. With them, you are just a click away from delving into an artistic awe, but I assume this has never happened and never will; and I feel sad for you.

All these websites share a common goal: to display the most exhaustive catalogue of artworks, curated by the best experts. The latter being all cut from the same cloth and all willing to disrupt the art world while actually working towards maintaining the current status-quo. It's not being done on purpose and we’re not fighting them, just interrogating their methodology.

The status-quo is defined as: the art world only accepts those having gained the confidence - through their education - to immerse in an creative environment, to enjoy an artwork and to see themselves buying one; the few outsiders who broke the glass ceiling did it for an obscure reason. A large part of the population is left out.

The creators of these platforms often share the same background, which consists in having always been surrounded by arts throughout their life: at home, by going to museums, to exhibitions …They manage the galleries you go to when you look for a specific artwork (price, medium, movement). Or when you want to scroll without engaging. Or to kill time. Or to invest. We have to admit again that their collection is solid and is a guarantee for you to find what you need to decorate your living room.

Please don't misconstrue me, I have nothing against them at all and find admirable their willingness to replicate their environment; but it sounds naive to me. They base their thinking on the postulate that the broader the offer, the more visitors it will attract (and convert). A capitalist belief if I may: you don't look at art, you buy it. That's for and from the same people who are already familiar with it.

It doesn’t work like that. You could remain impervious to the effect of an artwork even if you were scrolling these galleries everyday. Your curiosity would remain unsatisfied and no emotions would be felt. Do the status-quo enablers appear more legitimate to talk about art; or does a newcomer, challenging the democratisation of art, also has a role to play?

Whoever (or whatever) is behind this place believes that its multidisciplinary - at the intersection of art and spirituality, at the intersection of a gallery and a marketplace - offers a different approach to what exists. There is nothing disruptive about the concept, as slow looking has been a human feature for ages.

Before going to bed, allow me one quick rant: should I ever say that The Blue Neon’s legitimacy – or mine by extent – comes from ‘hard work’, please hang me on the spot. Never has a correlation been so incorrect and more than that, it’s the use of this productivist term that sounds like forcing a legitimacy.

Be at one with art.

Yours Sincerely,

BLUE