Politics & Power Quote by Max Cannon

"Now interpersonal politics... that's what it's all about" has the snap of someone interrupting a loft conversation to name the real engine under the talk. Coming from an artist, Max Cannon isn’t praising electoral politics so much as pointing at the micro-government we all live under: friendship hierarchies, gatekeeping, unspoken debts, who gets invited, who gets credited, who gets forgiven. The pause and ellipsis do work here. "Now" signals a pivot from some more comfortable topic (craft, ideals, ideology) to the messier truth. "Interpersonal politics" sounds clinical, almost bureaucratic, which is the joke and the sting: we like to imagine our relationships as natural and sincere, yet they often run on negotiation, leverage, and narrative control.

The line also reads like a critique of scenes that insist they’re meritocracies. Art worlds, especially, are allergic to admitting how much is decided off-canvas: the charisma economy, the whisper network, the soft power of curators, collaborators, exes, and patrons. Cannon’s blunt "that’s what it’s all about" doesn’t leave room for romantic myths about pure expression. It suggests that your work can be brilliant and still lose to social physics.

There’s a weary clarity in it, too. Calling it "politics" doesn’t necessarily mean cynicism; it can be a survival tip. If you pretend relationships are outside power, power wins invisibly. Naming the interpersonal as political is a way to regain agency: read the room, protect your boundaries, choose alliances with eyes open.