Jerry Saltz, for one, bemoans the lack of good art being created and shown today, as do many other critics, VoCA included.
The recent exhibition Unmonumental at the New Museum in New York (see VoCA post HERE) is a perfect example. As someone commented, it was art that’s being made for a market where people will buy anything.
An installation shot of Unmonumental. Image: artcadeforum.wordpress.com
Another installation shot. Image: artcadeforum.wordpress.com
Part of the problem seems to be the changing power structure of the art world. Where once critics’ opinion were influential, now commercial galleries hold tremendous power. They achieve a certain credibility – people like Larry Gagosian – whose power is such that collectors may buy works sight unseen, over the phone or from a jpeg. These galleries produce catalogues, they create waiting lists for work, they choose which collectors are worthy of a certain artist’s work, etc etc.
Dealer Larry Gagosian makes the cover of Art Review’s Power issue. Image: friendster.com
The collectors themselves have a new kind of power, too. Many of them – Charles Saatchi, Eli Broad – buy work by young artists, then open museums, hire curators, produce catalogues, donate to museums, sell their works at auction (often for an enormous profit). They effectively create a market for these works.
In 1984, Eli and wife Edythe formed the Broad Art Foundation, the single largest collection of Jeff Koons artworks in the world. “We had more artworks than we could possibly display,” Broad has said. “The art foundation was a way to share important works with museums, other institutions and the public.”
(VoCA wonders whether Koons is the most overrated, yet savvy, American artist..)
Mega-collectors Eli and Edythe Broad with artist Jeff Koons. Image: artandliving.com
What’s wrong with this situation? Well, nothing….and everything. From a critic’s point of view, it becomes about why certain works of art are deemed important. We would argue that there is an energy about great artworks that is best discovered by someone with experience looking at, and assessing, visual art.
Whether or not an art work ‘speaks’ to someone should be only the beginning. The work must hold universal importance on some level – great art is about the human condition.
Joseph Beuys, I Like America and America Likes Me, 1974. Image: hawaii.edu
One thing that happens when the commercial galleries and collectors hold so much power, is that artists – in their desire to become successful – create art for the powerful. Consciously or not, artists make work that fits easily into galleries and homes, that is cutely conceptual – like a joke that collectors with little art education can easily understand.
What happened to the ‘un-buyable’ art? Remember the work made by Joseph Beuys, or Anselm Kiefer or Paul Thek? This art wasn’t nice and it wasn’t pretty. But it was terribly important.
Austrian artist Hermann Nitsch performs with blood and paint in Klosterneuburg, 1996.
Image: hpb.at
VoCA would like to see the return to a day where painting leaps off the canvas and into the room, into collaborations with dance, theatre, music and film.
Where people don’t necessarily ‘get’ the idea in the work. Where the craftsmanship of an artwork overwhelms the idea. Where an artist understands that he or she needs to go big, and goes massive. Where the power of the execution matches the power of the idea.
An installation by Jessica Stockholder. Image: blog.art21.org
Of course there are artists already working this way – and we commend them. Jessica Stockholder, and Canadians Shary Boyle, Daniel Barrow, Daniel Cockburn, Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay, Michael Dudeck, Paul Butler, Adad Hannah…to name only a few.
But they’re few and far between.
Andrea Carson writes on contemporary art, architecture and design...
This is an interesting question to grapple with as an artist. At times I have found greater solace in the commercial galleries being powerful, as their concerns are easy to surmise. At other times, I wonder if I am delusional to think my work is at all saleable in that world without the weight of my performance of “painter”. I feel more and more kinship to a quote that Justin Evans’ throws around from Marilyn Minter about making her work for only 5 or 6 people that have very nuanced an continued relationship to it, and being mystified by the reasons that thousands more love it, react to it an buy it. I think this describes, at least from the artists end, a kind of haggeled-out relationship to having one’s work received in the kind of power climate you are discussing in this post.
Maybe it is the terrible delusion of the young artist to imagine some turning point where one has both the weight of understanding from peers and a few dollars in your pocket, but I think this delusion is an equally powerful force to having one’s work seen as shrewd assessment of what is required to get it seen. Hell, I’d argue that given my own terrible research skills, delusion is really th only way.
“One thing that happens when the commercial galleries and collectors hold so much power, is that artists – in their desire to become successful – create art for the powerful. Consciously or not, artists make work that fits easily into galleries and homes, that is cutely conceptual.”
“One thing that happens when the ART COUNCIL OF ONTARIO and THE CCA hold so much power, is that artists – in their desire to become successful – create art for the STATE. Consciously or not, artists make work that fits easily into PUBLICLY-FUNDED INSTITUTIONS, that is cutely conceptual.”
When I argued a few months ago that artists are influenced to make work that pleased government art-funding organizations, I was met with a delightful amount of scorn on the comment board. Now Ms. Carson makes the same point, but with commercial galleries instead of the state as the distorting influence. I hope she will acknowledge that this argument cuts both ways.
Public intuitions encouraged the equation of “non-commercial” with “authentic” in order to reinforce their own relevance, and unfortunately that attitude still prevails in the Canadian art world. Please don’t fall for this. An artist who creates something that can’t/won’t be sold is not automatically profound or interesting (the same applies to artists who sell work for five, six or seven figures – see Holmes, Thrush).
There is no doubt that galleries hold tremendous power, and that some art that has little craftsmanship or ability to “speak to the human condition” has been purchased at ridiculous prices. But “the powerful” are choosing to buy art, and are ferociously trying to outbid each other in order to do it. While some collectors may treat art like the stock market, most are passionate about art. Is it not encouraging that once people like Broad or Pinault achieve a level of wealth that allows them to live a life of leisure, that they turn to the arts?
Ms. Carson, you ask “what happened to un-buyable art” and then state you like to see a “return to a day where painting leaps off the canvas”. Do you equate “un-buyable” with “leaping off the canvas”? Your past posts have exhibited hostility towards commercially successful artists, seemingly just for being successful.
A lot of interesting questions were raised in the recent Artforum issue on the Art Market, and who wields the power.
As a Dealer of emerging art, it is close to impossible to gain the attention of the local, national or international curators. To get them into a gallery is an even more daunting task. I cater to my clients because they are the the ones who are visited more frequently by the curators and institutions. I will spend my energies selling into private collections rather than funding major installation projects because I have a better chance at the work being seen if it is in a collector’s space.
I think points raised in this post should be strongly considered by curators and institutions. What happened to the Geldzahlers, curators who made a point to spend their time in studios and galleries, whom clients would ask for advice on where to visit?
With what appears to be clients hungrier for contemporary discourse than curators and institutions the power obviously shifts.
I think that one remedy requires an institutional shift to celebrating the monumentality of art in a very immediate fashion
LE Gallery’s Wil Kucey makes some very good points, not least when Andrea’s observations relate more to the power of ‘top-end’ dealers like LG than to the practices and ambitions of a significant number of other commercial galleries who have to operate in a world where people are lulled into thinking such ‘top-end’ activity somehow describes the entire art world. In this respect, there are galleries that take risks with ‘monumental’ (although I caution to add that it would be a grave mistake to understand this term as a call for ‘big’ in the sense of physical size) and otherwise brave works that will be exceedingly hard to place in private homes, exhibitions that are really all about the commercial gallery doing the job of public galleries by maintaining public spaces (who charges entry fees to a private gallery?) that introduce art that merits being given a voice. The biggest gamble within the risk being taken is that public-gallery curators — not to mention art writers — will (not) make their way to see such shows. And it is here that Wil is completely right — by and large, curators do not get out much and, when they do, it is considered a coup that they have seen fit to step into a studio or a gallery space. This may be a Toronto phenomenon, joined at the hip with a host of other cultural attributes of the art-world power elites in this city, and it may be that cities like Calgary or Vancouver or Montreal or Winnipeg have a more interactive scene when it comes to the commercial and public gallery worlds. But it is definitely a defining feature of Toronto. And, without belabouring the point, art writing is such a fringe activity in Canadian culture — if someone were to do an OECD survey of countries in terms of serious publishing venues for frequent and sustained art writing, and accompanying incentives for art writers/critics to get out to write about art more than they do, I would speculate that Canada would come very near the bottom of the heap. Without a different curatorial and art-writing culture in Canada, the odds are stacked against commercial galleries playing the role they can and should try to play, of being the first-movers in discovering major talent and letting the rest of the art world know about it. Along with the mallification of the art world through the combined juggernaut of art fairs and auctions, private/commercial galleries (as public spaces, I hasten to add again) have for some time been an endangered species and the indifference of the curatorial and art-writing communities is just one more bum sitting on the coffin lid. No doubt curators and art-writers have structural conditions to contend with (overwork, information deluge, mandates from management, the aforementioned dirth of serious publishing venues), but it does not make it any less urgent for them to start paying attention to what private/commercial galleries have to offer. It may be that it will only be with new forms of clicks-and-mortar interaction through Internet venues (VoCA being the best example in Canada) that the curatorial / critical/ private gallerist synergies can optimize their promise.
Craig Scott of Craig Scott Gallery, Toronto
I really can’t believe that the only two comments made were by one-L Wils.
Fucking brilliant!
Very interesting points raised in your article. I only agree with your position on the very high end of the art market. For less established artists, the commercial galleries and collectors are what allow them to pay their rent and put food on their table and focus on making art instead of making ends meet.
I think part of the shift you raise in your article is occurring because people feel alienated by those who insist that only those with an art education can appreciate (or learn to appreciate) “important” work.
And what is the definition of important work — that which is understood by a sliver of society or that which has the power to change society through a connection to a larger audience? I would argue it can be either or both…which tells me that there is a need for both non-profit/public and commercial entities — one does not replace the other.
[full disclosure, I own a small commercial gallery]
I had a look at the catalogue for Unmonumental and I thought it looked like a really interesting show. Peter Schjeldahl’s review – also very interesting: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/artworld/2008/03/17/080317craw_artworld_schjeldahl
I don’t understand what you mean by a “return to monumental” – it seems to me the artists you mention at the end of your post could have easily been curated into the New Mueum exhibition.
Oh poop and apologies, I gave you the wrong link to Schjeldahl. I’ll look it up.
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/notebook/2007/12/24/071224gonb_GOAT_notebook_schjeldahl
here is the link
I think I’m trying to suggest that a lot of work today looks jaded and unimportant, to my eye, anyway. I prefer art that embodies a strong, an important idea – and whose physical presence reflects that.
I felt that much of the work in the New Museum show was insipid, and that the artists who I’ve mentioned are working on interesting collaborations, often mixing media, working with musicians, theatre etc and generally trying to take art out of the ‘picture frame’ and into life…
I’ll read the New Yorker review, though – thanks.
Hi Andrea,
Interesting post. I appreciate you raising a lot of thorny issues, and I respect your views. But must admit I see the art world a bit differently.
I mean, I most certainly agree about the influence of the market on many artists’ production–but even prior to the level of market influence we see today, there were patrons, institutions, critics, class systems, gender biases and, yes, still dealers who exerted influence on production (or who tried to, and succeeded to degrees depending on the artist–who can live w/o influences?)
As for another point we agree on, yes, critics are not as influential as perhaps they once were back in the heyday of Voltaire or Ruskin. But I don’t think that’s a bad thing. To me criticism (and/or my criticism, at least) is only really one reaction to the work. Sure, when I write, it’s weighted through my knowledge and experience (and, to be tiresome, influences); but I’m under no illusion that that knowledge and experience is absolute/universal–it’s highly specific. If people find that specific view interesting or worth reading, so much the better. But I don’t aim to peg a universal best.
To some, this might mean to some that I shouldn’t be a critic. After all, I don’t presume to know it all, or at even know it most–even if my tone sometimes indicates otherwise. Instead, to me, doing criticism can be like doing a close reading on a text, and noting the inconsistencies, nuances, themes, feelings–and yes, for sure judgments–that that reading experience provokes. Maybe that’s wimpy or “unmonumental” criticism. But I like it.
As for the feelings you raise around clannish approaches to art interpretation–if you “get it”/can afford it, you’re cool, and if you don’t or can’t you’re not–I’m with you on loathing those. But there’s no way this cliquish snobbery is exclusively related to the installation practices you describe. It’s been around a long time and clings to everything from Bottacelli to Serra to Barney and beyond.
As with any artworld trend, “unmonumentalism,” if we can call it that, is starting to wear out its welcome. With you as with others. When the margins become the mainstream in many fields–literature, activism, fashion–people start to look for alternatives, for something that reflects a different view, speaks a different truth, jolts the eye and the brain with its newness (or in the case of retro, renewed newness).
Looking at this art phenomenon in particular, I too am puzzled over what will come “next.” At the same time I think the trend in current shows to underwhelming work somehow makes sociological sense–the combination of climate change, precarious social systems, massive economic class gaps, continued human suffering, prolonged warfare and major technological change tending to deflate the spirit somewhat (or prompt one to consider a possibility constructed through necessarily slim means).
But I do also see value in the true, the unified, the dogmatic, the substantial, the uncompromising, the one.
So I’ll have to keep thinking on that! : ) Maybe the answer is just more art, more artists and more places to see it.
Sorry, I meant Greenberg or Ruskin. Screw Voltaire.