Art World

As art would no longer respond to itself, and no longer had any constraints, other human activities could be drawn from the world into its hungry maw. Art was no longer moving forward. Individual artists were free to consume the present, swallow other cultural forms, and twist them into new experiences.

Contemporary art had become so popular, so urgent, so cool, and so well-funded that a fall, in retrospect, was inevitable. As soon as it reached its peak, the height of its great flourishing, it had already begun its precipitous decline.