he guy who commissions an oil painting of his dog will tell you he is buying art, as will the collector who buys, say, a Koons. But they obviously aren’t at all buying the same thing. There is a gaping Wittgensteinian black hole loose in the art universe and it’s business a susual. Our readers know what we think. This conceptual black holeis getting bigger at internet speed, dissolving received ideas about art like sugar cubes in hot water. We’reon our own, and anything goes. That’s why artists’ networks like onestar’s have become so important. When configured correctly, they structure artistic nodes & networks into meta-networks and render them widely accessible. Globalization is good for art, but without artists’ networks institutions and galleries control too much of the territory. In the black hole, subversive internet-enabled networks are creating hybrid forms of expression that reanimate critical questions about private/public spheres, originality, representation, etc. Artists’ networks are creating alternatives at every stage of an artist’s process, including distribution. So art lover, get Koons to sign that dog painting and we can have it our way.
Richard Dailey

This issue is dedicated to the late Abbie Hoffman.