It’s an essay with photographs, “Finding Beauty — At Maximum Discount.” A sample:
One of the reasons neither I nor anyone else around these big-box stores can stay away from them is their particular variety of beauty. The beauty of Walmart, we might say, is baroque, like a huge Rubens canvas that fills a wall with an incredibly rich stack of colors and forms.The writer is a senior fellow at the American Institute for Philosophical and Cultural Thought. I think he’s serious. But I think he should ask some Wal-Mart regulars why they can’t stay away.
[I choose to retain the old-school hyphen in Wal-Mart.]
comments: 5
I think your man’s argument and especially his analogies are tenuous at best. Greeters equated to docents at a major gallery? Please.
Wal ★Mart (I’m sure it used to be a five-pointed star) is not particularly ugly but merely austere. There may be a riot of colours but they is not rhythm, harmony, or aesthetic consideration to their placement.
Fine, I admit it, I believe that there is a difference between high- and low-brow. They don’t merge into some bland middle-brow. Give me one Rubens and I’ll let you have a province (state) full of big-box nightmares.
Having chatted with a docent here and there, I have to concur.
I wondered if the entire effort was meant to troll, but the writer’s credentials suggest not. And now I’m remembering a recent trip to a Costco (I’d never been) and the resulting sensory overload. Get me to a gallery!
P.S.: I think I remember the star.
I'm struck by the photograph halfway through the essay, the one that is an overview shot of the grocery aisles, shelves neatly arranged in an outrage of colors, box upon box, bottle upon bottle, the overwhelming multidue of choice that Wal-Mart offers us -- no, foists upon us--as if to say "Here, look, you want consumer capitalism? Look upon these mighty works and shop to your heart's content and know the moment you leave the checkout line you'll want and want and want again, for we sell but momentary contentment at rock-bottom prices."
Momentary contentment before wanting more, again and again, sounds like an addiction model, doesn’t it?
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