Again, and Again

We are done with the last century!
In the wake of post modernism, artist tried to create something against convention against convention and against convention. Art became a scam and a protest more than a visual representation of life. Starting from abstract expressionism, in which action painters (Pollock) and color field painters (Newman) somewhat innocently attempted to create an art form in which convention of the time was being challenged the art instead transformed at best in a psychological  experiment, and at worst "safe art" which could be hanged in any corporation, office, or public place. This trend grew more cynically so by artists like Rauschenberg in which he, again, challenged the, again, established convention of the time really forgetting composition, color theory, and all that good stuff.
Now I'm all for the free thinking of art, I perceive art as a free expression of self, but when art is pushed pass the expression, pass the skill of the artist and into the  commodity of art directly, that is when art dies. And art died in the greater part of the twentieth century. From Rauschenberg, to Jasper Johns' targets,  and flags (which again challenged convention of the 1940s) rose Warhol. He, them most cynical of all, may have had an artistic mind, but fame and money was the heart. Now while Pop art attempted to merge high art and art as a commodity (which pop artist where very content to scam people into buying their work) minimalism said fuck it! lets just shove cubes (Donald Judd) in galleries and convince people to buy them. and people did buy minimalist art. and minimalist did wrote long long essays to convince people.
There is story in Mexican culture, that when the Spanish conquered the Aztecs and other natives, Aztec did not really cared for gold, to them jade was more valuable. So the Spanish, being as smart as they where, started trading mirrors for gold. Now mirrors was something an Aztec had never seen, to see himself reflected for the first time must've been the greatest thing in the world! and the Spanish left happy with their gold, traded for mirrors.
Trading gold for mirrors has been the trend of the twentieth century art scene. People did not bought art, the bought innovation, something that was not seen like that, or presented like that, but eventually became common and, well, lame.
And Donald Judd, and Frank Stella made their little fortunes with corporations buying their "safe art" and everyone was content with buying and making lines and cubes. Feminism stuck the art world! Now, while I do respect the movement, and it was necessary for humanities' advancement, when female (and later male) artist started with appropriation art as an artistic protest, my respect ends when money starts. It is not possible to comprehend the person watching a picture of a picture and thinking wow! how clever! it's never been done before! Well yes it has, it just wasn't hung in a gallery before. The "artist" knows it, and the artist had become the greatest prankster of the twentieth century.
Thank God its over!
But trends of the Prankster Artist still ensue in some pockets of the art scene...