Sweep it under the carpet

Are you concerned with saving large sums for future investments? Do monetary fluctuations, weak bank policies, prospects and inflation worry you? Is your money in need of some laundry? Chill, Art is here for you. Sublime, inspiring, groundbreaking, Art is it all, and also a great investment. We know that gold is now on the rise, but for how long will the markets keep it up? Time normally has this decreasing effect on printed paper: usually those pieces coloured with important people and numbers, the ones we love enough to keep in your wallet; you know, those you sell your time for, they have a tendency to devalue, through this phenomenon called inflation. (I know, it sounds much better to say “I make X an hour” than “I sell an hour of my life for X ”). And while the portraits of those presidents, Kings and Queens we keep in our pockets devalue, the portraits of whores by Toulouse-Lautrec are likely to keep (or even increase) their value. Don't you just love irony? I don’t believe money is the source of all evil, but it has been bringing hypocrisy and elitism to the world of art, as it does with any world it touches, all the way back to the renascence. Private collections are synonymous to luxury, social status, and for a long time you wouldn’t be able to see Velázquez’s portrait of the king unless you were close to the royal court. Then Museums arrived, the avant-garde brought Art closer to the people, and soon enough you have more pieces of art on your pocket than you'll ever be able to see. A week ago was the International Art Museum Day, something that ought to be praised: the efforts and valuable work of such institutions has helped the great majority of us who can’t afford to maintain our own gallery be in touch culture and beauty. But I can’t avoid making some points: What should a museum’s role be in this day and age, when I can enjoy Mona Lisa on my device, without a crushing crowd? And what about the pieces that don't fit the conventional canvas? Canvases began to be painted because they would facilitate trade, as they could be rolled up and shipped off back to renaissance Venice and Florence (churches walls and painted wood were much harder to sell). The stereotype of painting we have today was developed to make value, and maybe that’s the reason why so many people don't value what’s being painted outside of it. For those people I present Banksy. To further question the role of museums today, bear this in mind: - I, (in your pocket) challenge you (who knows more than a random museum will receive today) to investigate Banksy on this display (upon which you can go from the Louvre to Gulbenkian with a tap), and later, to roam around the streets that are his ticketless museum. Artur Deus Dionisio