The Fyre Festival and Violent Mimesis
On April 27, 2017, the first attendees of the now-infamous Fyre Festival landed in the Bahamas. They expected a weekend of luxury and pampering, and to potentially rub shoulders with Instagram influencers such as Kendall Jenner and Hailey Baldwin. Instead, they were met with chaos. There were no luxury hotels or gourmet meals, just Lord […]
Mimetic Desire in the Art Market: Mona Lisa
What art feuds reveal about human desire The art world has a fetish for conspiracy. Take a casual sweep of the news over a given year and you will turn up any number of stories about stolen masterpieces, disputed provenances, and multi-million-dollar black-market auctions. Art itches for intrigue and the latest installment involve the Mona […]
Mimesis Versus Imitation
Mimesis is a funny word. It would make Strunk & White (who taught us never to use unnecessary or overly complicated words) cringe. So why use it? It turns out there’s a good reason Quite simply, mimesis is not the same as imitation. It refers to something far more common, far more powerful, and far […]