I've been thinking about this whole art/marketing/corporate thing for the last day, and there's a thought that keeps occurring to me...

The art is more than its genesis.

There's the artist herself, who has a relationship with the piece.

There's the company that paid for her to make it.

Then there is your experience of the art.

Before knowing who made it, before knowing who paid for it, there was a reaction you had to the piece itself. A pure feeling of emotion and meaning. A knowing. An understanding. An experience.

That moment and experience is not diminished knowing that the artist has created similar pieces for other big-money companies. That moment and experience is not diminished knowing that a hedge fund conceived and paid for Fearless Girl. Those are all post-hoc evaluations of your initial response to the piece itself, which was a moment of honesty and genuine emotion.

I feel like anything beyond that initial experience of the piece is useless nit-picking. Art Critique for no meaningful purpose. An artist was commissioned: She delved into her experience and soul and skills and produced a piece: You had an experience with the piece. End of story.

Anything else is meaningless.

(I was just in NYC a few weeks ago, and went specifically to see Fearless Girl... and she's not there. What is there are two long lines of people in front and behind the bull: One line to take a photo with his balls, and one line to take a photo with his head. This is a far more interesting conversation to have, IMHO.)