It's taken a few months, but I think I've almost chosen our next car.

I've weighed up new versus second-hand, assess the depreciation rates, and spoken to eight insurance providers.

I'll be ready to enter phase two of selection over the next few weeks.

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that simplifies your life. With insurance, maintenance and the possibility of switching to a fresh vehicle every six months your Welcome to the Quilette Podcast. I'm your host Iona Italia, the managing editor at

Quilette. Quilette is where free thought lives. We are an independent grassroots platform for heterodox ideas and fearless

commentary. If you'd like to support the podcast, you can do so by going to Kooltt.com and becoming a paid subscriber.

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quilat social events. My guest this week is Megan Gafford. Megan is an artist, teacher, and

writer. She publishes visual essays on her sub-stack, fashionably late takes.

She is also a frequent contributor to Colette.

In this conversation we discuss her recent long think-piece for the magazine, The Totalitarian Artist Politics versus Beauty.

Among other topics we look at the way in which Marcel du Chaun and the other modernists revolutionized art,

at the modern art market at how

artists and critics have moved away from a celebration of beauty and skill and

towards art that is conceptual and often polemical.

We also look at the impacts of these changes on architecture with special reference to the decline

of art deco.

I hope you enjoy my conversation with Megan Gafford.

Hello Megan, thank you so much for joining me.

I'm going to begin by just reading the first couple of lines of your piece for Colette which is about the connection between

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