How to Fail as an Artist, 6

If you want to get ahead in the art world, you have to know how to play the game. But it helps to know that the fastest way to get ahead in the game is to take the normal rules and turn them upside down.

For example, if you're going to write a paper, you probably know that you'll get a bad grade if you 'Beg the question' instead of really making a proposition.

Completely the opposite for success in the art market. For something like the last 50 years, artists have been making money off the dregs of their genius forebears by begging the question, "what is art?"

It goes a little something like this: The less it looks like art, the more it *is* art. The more people question if what you are doing is art, the better. It's kind of like an extra long, extra expensive episode of punkd.

And the biggest secret to this is that rich people love buying stuff that's inexplicable. That way, they can claim to have this extra-refined sense of artistic taste that you just wouldn't understand. (Remember the emperor's new clothes, anyone?) But of course, they still need their investments to appreciate in value, so it's not quite as easy as all that.

Still, it's good to know that you don't have to deal with actually making art to be an artist. As long as you can beg the question, you can rise right to the top.

Next week, how to make platinum, jewel -encrusted skulls that *don't* look like they're supposed to be on your stick shift.