"Diego's low brow friends"

Digital painting by Bo Lessing, signed 2271

Work ID: 98-43

One-of-a-kind original artworks

No. of versions: 01

Size: 57 megapixel

This work is available!

What it the woman robot in the foreground doing and on whose instruction? She seems to drag something heavy that looks like an amalgamation of a fist and a glans towards her. The "strange substance or thing" seems to be resting on a greenish, half transparent fabric that is thrown over a dark red something.

Mysterious.

"Diego's low brow friends", so the title of the painting, might have a hard time to understand the scene. And for Diego, obviously the painter Velasquez, shown working behind his huge canvas portraying the royals of Spain, has a clear idea of art: "If they [his friends] don't understand it, it must be art." If so, we are probably seeing a piece of happening art, a performance rather than a sculpture. Who cares - as long as Diego's friends don't get its meaning and aaaahh and ohhh it, convinced they are members of an elite - the high brow crowd. Well, they misjudge themselves.

Lessing mocks the players of the amateur art circles, the hobby artists and their very knowledgeable friends who despise everything that is easy to understand.

In addition Lessing shows a guy nicknamed "Diego" who must be a human since only humans have friends. Diego's hobby seems to love roleplaying a 17th century Baroque painter to the extent that he even had a studio built after "Las Meninas" and even has it populated with robot replicas of the Spanish king's children and their servants.

On the other hand, far enough in the future, with enough UBI at everyone's hands, people will have the funds to really get into their hobbies. Retro activities will be extremely popular because its more interesting to replay a time and situations where everything was difficult, challenging or even dangerous.