Big, Blue $43.8 million Newman “Zip” Painting On the 8 th of October, a lift technician at a museum in the Netherlands mistakenly threw away a piece of artwork made to look like two empty beer cans. Last year, the infamous artwork consisting of a banana duct-taped to a wall was eaten by a hungry visitor to a gallery in Seoul, South Korea. Last month, I went to an art gallery and convulsed my face in disdain at the random blobs of paint that covered the canvases on the high walls. Modern art can be quite the sore spot for us connoisseurs. The painful abstract paintings, novels of base vocabulary, CGI drowned movies and music made on one beats app with auto-tune or nonsense lyrics physically hurt. I know I sound like your grandmother here, but bear with me when I ask you; how do you feel when you see a plain canvas covered entirely in blue paint? What emotions does a blue rectangle evoke? To me, none. But what if I told you that rectangle sold for almost $44 million? You’d probably a
Smooth sailing into cold December, 2023 is wrapping up. A look back at this year reveals the interesting blends of old and new that were born.
We find ourselves in a time of tumultuous and constant change. Let’s face it, gen z evolves so quick that we can’t even keep up with ourselves. Hundreds of new slang words, trends, memes crowd the internet every day – and die out pretty quickly too. So in this fast paced world, how do things like classical music, news, law, and film keep up? A look back at 2023 reveals a simple recipe for success – an intriguing middle ground. A new fight for survival, the fight to be heard, preserved, remembered has arisen. This era doesn’t require free-spirit or traditionalism, it requires adaptability.
TikTok entertains over a billion users worldwide with its variety of videos in 60 seconds or less. Between the smooth swipes appear extremely creative advertising which at first glance doesn’t even seem like it with its careful blend into the current trends or memes. And in these TikToks we find professionals of law, medicine and education who have adapted to the new humour. Gaining a quick following, they become influencers to entertain, make jokes about their craft and even offer professional advice. Lawyer Kevin Kennedy of The Kennedy Law Firm got viral by making tiktoks offering advice on how to deal with legal matters and establishing the catchphrase “Kev’s got you covered!”. Often compared to the iconic Saul Goodman from Breaking Bad, he has over 1.6 million followers which he entertains almost daily with his takes on popular memes and jokes about his experiences, getting over 38.6 million likes. Dr Anthony Youn considers himself America’s Holistic Plastic Surgeon, with over 8.3 million followers and 304.3 million likes he is certainly one of the most popular. He rose to fame with his “celebrity plastic surgery: real or sus?” videos, in which he guesses whether celebrities have gotten plastic surgery or not. A quick scroll through his account shows his videos giving dermatological and medical advice, information about popular aesthetic procedures and of course, laughs. Even the news is up with a twist with the talking fish from SpongeBob Squarepants delivering serious as well as pop culture news on Tiktok, garnering millions of views on each video and 16.3 million likes.
This innovative fusion of serious business in the online world is a revolution in narrowing the vast gaps of ideology and generation we find between gen z and their elders. We need professionals and professionals need us, thus the middle ground is established to stay relevant and connected to each other.
Medicine, law and news are vital for each generation but renowned producer Metro Boomin’s Red Bull Symphonic performance introduces to the new world a way to carry classical music to the ends of time. In a 90 minute sold out show at the Dolby Theatre, Metro played some of his biggest hits of modern hip-hop made with the most popular artists of current day such as The Weeknd and Travis Scott with instrumentals from a full orchestra. This riveting performance reimagined the way we the define the boundaries of genre and performance creating a bridge between classical and contemporary performers to move hand in hand on to the future, paving the path for the audience to follow. The Barbenheimer craze popularized the appreciation for traditional and modern film with the stark differences between the work of Nolan and Gerwig on their respective films. Nolan held a conservative approach, filming entirely on 75mm Imax film while Gerwig used a blend of old and new techniques. Both films took the world by storm and in the age of streaming platforms rebirthed the flare of cinema-goers. It was a win for cinema, as the charismatic Cillian Murphy put it. And so, the approach to a middle ground between traditional and contemporary art was established. This will not only retain the interest of new generations but create opportunities for artists to preserve art, experiment with it and establish their professions as high quality creativity will always remain in demand.
2023 has shown us that it is indeed possible to create a middle ground where efficient dialogue can occur. Such a collaboration has perhaps never been seen before and only by establishing it further on matters beyond just professionalism and humour we can craft spaces to discuss larger issues and bring about a change. Sometimes, it requires a little force to worm in between the huddle of big shoulders to make a point, to start a movement, like the strong activism of youth organisations for climate action that created ripples of conversation, seldom disagreeable, yet still conversation that remains on the tip of the tongue of the common man, of the government, of summits.
To triumph in the survival of the fittest of this new world, the ability to adapt and merge is the essential characteristic and will only lead to the benefit of all by cutting down the distance in between us so as to learn from each other and grow together for a blossoming society – also leaving a blueprint for gen alpha and the many more to come.
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