Those of us who live and thrive in brutal environments are not always the best of us. If anything, they almost never do. In such a world, those who have the courage to feel – those who open their hearts – are often the ones who are punished and perish. A lesson for anyone who dares to do the same. And so we harden. We feel cold. We are afraid to say anything that the public might object to. We are afraid of them, we are afraid of our neighbors, we are afraid everywhere. How can a world function when everyone in it is constantly afraid? It is not possible. While some of us – the brave ones – die, as Hilda Lynn Helfenstein did, overnight, tragically, and instantly, the rest of us do so quietly, cowardly, and slowly.
I’ve seen too much of this in the art world to remain silent. Courage deserves to be called. Few women succeed in this world, and when they do, they are treated barbarically. No wonder most people would rather fade into wallpaper than see them. The industry quietly says that women are not enough on their own, they feel forced to give in to surgery, stay young, and stay beautiful. Men don’t feel the same pressures. Hilda was even attacked, I read in passing, by an artist who accused her of betraying the working class. Working class. As if the art world as it exists today has anything to do with the working-class towns of Kentucky and Pennsylvania or the woods of Maine and Texas.
Since when has the art world been working class? I have yet to see a working-class man or woman walk into a Soho or Chelsea gallery and feel truly welcome. Art is one of the few things that can help ordinary people endure extraordinary hardships. This is not a choice made every day by an industry that talks about accessibility while building higher walls.
The art world presents itself as progressive, liberal, and enlightened. It is none of these things, and nothing reveals that more clearly than the one holding the pen. At The New York Times, both visual arts critics are white men. This is the seat of power. This is where artists are legitimized or buried, where galleries rise or disappear, where careers are created by a single review. And in 2026, at the newspaper that lectures this nation daily on race and equality, none of those seats will be reserved for a woman or a person of color.
I’m not someone who deals in racial politics. I believe in the best person for the role, nothing more. But in a country of 330 million people – a nation of extraordinary ethnic, cultural and sexual diversity – repeatedly reaching the same demographic in the same chair as was the case during the apartheid era is no coincidence. The odds against it are staggering. Which means it’s not a chance. It is preference. It is quietly maintained, institutionally protected, and made alien by the fact that the institution doing it is the loudest voice in the room on the subject of justice. This is not progressive. This is performance.
Many in the art world, especially artists, imagine an art world that simply does not exist. I’ve never been interested in the art world. She cared about the real world. Art belongs to only one world, the same world in which we all wake up. It was never intended to be as elitist, exclusionary, or as harsh and judgmental as it has become.
Art is about conveying the human experience that unites us all across time, culture and language. This simple gesture of understanding between seemingly different human beings reminds us of our common humanity. I wish it was more for the working class. For the millions who wake up every day and go to work, who don’t have the luxury of talking about life’s big questions, but who can be affected in ways they never expected, if only they were allowed to experience them. Sometimes it’s nothing more than standing in front of a work of art before heading to work, only to realize years later that it was that exact moment that gave them the courage to continue.
If evil exists in this world, it kills the spirit of humanity by seducing the art world with capital. The circle became smaller and more exclusionary. We began to obsess over certain artists and certain names and forgot what art was, robbing humanity of one of the last tools we had to remember that despite everything, commercial exploitation, materialism, decadence, there was still something inside us that we once cherished. spirit.
Maybe it’s time to stop and think about how far we have gone and how far we have gone astray. We constantly hear about galleries closing, retrenchments, and the art world model collapsing beyond repair – everyone desperate to discover the secret to survival. Maybe the secret is, and always has been, the one thing we had and lost. The model that seemed so unattainable begins with exhibitions rooted once again in the heart of the owner. Because when you forget you’ve got one, you’ll spend the rest of your days trying to figure out in your head how to fix something that only the heart can fix.
George Burgess is the founder and owner of George Burgess Gallery. He still believes that art is not a luxury but a necessity in life. Art for life’s journey.
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