LOOKING AT ART WITH SPARK NO. 19:

The art world is awash with fabulous fraud. The auction houses peddle piddling trifles for millions of dollars with scant regard for authenticity or provenance. The recent disclosures regarding the rampant and clumsy forgeries that are flooding the Chinese market come as no surprise to the few remaining dinosaurs who still value the cute sentimental rigors of connoisseurship, discernment, quality and depth.

The age of mechanical reproduction is a thrashing monsoon of monotonous accessibility. 

With two quick clicks one can instantly actualize The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb and The Exaltation of the Lip Syncing Man reducing them both into what Silicon Valley euphemistically calls "visual assets."

Even our most gifted artists are compromised by this Benjaminian dystopia. A recent show at Méchant Mec, the New York gallery specializing in what has come to be known as SoCal Neo-DaDa, exhibited a series of oil paintings by Los Angeles artist David Schoffman that were fabricated in workshops in Seoul, South Korea according to specifications communicated strictly through Twitter. In an apparent concession to the realities of global marketing, Schoffman has agreed to the unlicensed franchising of three of his most recognizable images. These more affordable facsimiles are now available in galleries and selected boutiques in Asia and the Arabian Peninsula.

And so it must be. 

Walter Benjamin's final resting place in Portbou has the following epitaph inscribed on his gravestone: "There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism." 

Grab on to your portable electronic devices, strap yourselves in and watch as we scroll our way into the abyss . . .