This article is part 3 in a series of stand alone kvetching about the state of the artworld. The opinions expressed within are held by a big baby, and not the blogs they are found on. There is no need to read them all, but if your beverage of choice is Haterade, then part 1 can be found here, while part 2 can be found here.
…And if you don’t like Haterade, then this one is totally positive, dude.
G.U.L.F. (Gulf Ultra Luxury Faction) protestors intervention in the Guggenheim, February 22, 2014. With intrepid planning, the coalition drew attention to the Guggenheim’s direct, yet denied involvement to the promotion of debt bondage in the Middle East.
“Art is an antidote to consumerism…. At a fair, art is connected to the weakest part about it… the fact that it has to sell.” — Matthew Collings, during a the Saatchi Gallery Debate: Art Fairs Are About Money Not Art (billed as a partisan debate by one of the biggest money making galleries in the world, whose namesake gained his fortune in advertising, and whose moderator, Simon de Pury, is both chairman and co-founder of the art auction house Phillips de Pury & Company, one of the largest in the world. Just sayin.)
We have become so obsessed with the money revolving around art that it has become a part of contemporary art. Often, when writing about art, we are writing about money. We look at art and we are looking at someone else’s accumulated wealth. Art no longer expresses ideas and possibilities, but also speculations and commodities. We exist in a system that exchanges money for services and goods for money. To say art must be free from the trappings of money says that artists should never get paid for their work. Art and money will always be connected in a capitalist system, and even most artists would not have it any other way.
But what happens when, increasingly, the art work loses its meaning and autonomy and becomes a status symbol for the rich and uber rich? It turns the artist into a stock which can be dumped at any time at the whim of a few collectors. It can draw hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars overnight. Most of the money does not go to the very few artists showing at this capacity, but towards the building of worldwide art institutions and vanity museums, promoting the monumental legacies of a few rich douchebags. The bulk of the cash stays circulating in the hands of the super rich, like a global game of Keep Away, where Big Money always wins. The few artists that can participate in this market become instant celebrities — images of people instead of actual people — their art, no longer truly representing anything other than the continuation of extreme capitalism, becomes the measure to which all other contemporary artists must relate their work to, and the greasy environment where art exists.
We tolerate these excesses and abuses within the art world because we see it to be the defender of the truth — the faith that is art history; a white male dominated Eurocentric history that means nothing at all in the real world. Denying the importance of Germany invading Poland in 1939 would be criminal, as arguing the importance of Jackson Pollock creating Action Painting would be just as ridiculous. That Pollock revolutionized Painting, or that Marcel Duchamp did the same for the object, matters little in understanding the world. What is part of art history is as much anthropological as it is a collection of tastes and values by those with the money and moral authority to maintain such collections, further edited by subsequent generations of taste. Every artwork must position itself somewhere among all other “important” art of all time, even though this is an incomplete picture built on the individual and collective tastes of the past. A past that is far removed from our present. It is beautiful, rich and moving for sure, but is just one purposefully incomplete story, and so is just fiction.
We will not be able to erase Art History, nor would we really want to, as we come to art in seriousness drawn by its history. Gaining the title of artist takes for granted the likelihood of a degree or multiple degrees in the practice, so the academic, by definition, relies on history — separating this is impossible. Instead, what I imply is a freedom to move alongside the history, conventions, dealings, markets, establishments and modes of art. Because if art history, no matter how grand, doesn’t matter, then neither does the rest.
While Social Practice is often some white asshole trying to help minority communities by their assessment of what “these communities” need to relieve their own guilt (liberal imperialism). But there is something within Social Practice that still offers a possibility of a freer art, a freer artist and a more inclusive public. It is within its socialist spirit, within a redefining of ownership, and the fluctuation of time and space. To be clear — there is nothing wrong with objects or images. To describe my love for a perfectly strange object or image as anything less then every neuron firing at once, effectively liquidating my brain, so that the pink goo drips out of my skull, down my spine and into my feet; the tingling sensation of this confused with the pissing and shitting of my art pants, while my eyes bug out and tongue extends to the floor, drooling like a cartoonish wolf over abandoned lambs; time stopping as I am taken out of my mortal body and able to claw at some other realm beyond comprehension just to be thrown back into reality– still does not adequately state my feelings towards the visceral power in the physicality of art. I am fortunate that I am consistently in the presence of great art, from established to emerging artists, who create work in this form. These are visceral responses we have to color, form and composition, becoming even more meaningful in their cultural context. The sprawling utility of much social practice tends to ignore aesthetics or, at the very least, subjugate them to the back burner. (Not that all art need be aesthetic.)
A revolutionary tool of Social Practice has quickly been diffused by the art establishment — that art can exist outside of the constructs of a capitalist white walled art environment — quickly became subjected to the art environment in order to give the work authority. No longer a revolutionary tool, it is instead a case study. Why can’t the next wave of Social Practice address this need for object and image? Completely within its reach, it has not through its determination of institutional critique while trying to court the institution. Socially engaging works with more interesting stand alone artifacts, not documents, may provide this. Keeping to the revolutionary fervor within the core of Social Practice is really what allows for its potential, and that is why, in general I am so frustrated by it. The key to this new art world may lie there: an art world with a stronger relationship between artist and audience, both able to fluctuate to the needs of the work.
Instead of molotov cocktails, what is needed is backroom maneuvering for the proletariat. Like minded collectives with a purpose. Alternative spaces without fixed addresses. Fine art blending with design and craft and consumer objects. Price ranges for the masses, marketing at a small scale. More art shares, art lending libraries. Personal networks that build the backbone of a new art community. Community involvement and investment through education, public programming, parties, entertainment. Invest in audiences if you want them to invest in you. Realize that you are going to be turned into a product against your will in the art world so you should brand yourself instead. Stage your own biennial. Crash fairs. Create new art spaces, like The Suburban was or Good Weather is, both suburban garages which bring great art to the average person. Trunk Shows, internet only galleries existing on facebook, and other ephemeral spaces that question the nature of art space and geographic space in the 21st Century.
If we can even make small advances with the public, we’d gain more viewers and supporters. We would find new markets and create new demand. We would sell more modest priced works more frequently. Instead of the nearly impossible goal of selling in the 5 and 6 digits exclusively, we’d find the more attainable goal of being able to put food on the table and clothes on our backs from the sale of our art, instead of a job we don’t care about. It would offer younger critics and curators to gain recognition for their work. Art would still be a joy, but it would be a joy shared by many instead of the few. Perhaps this art would look vastly different than art today. Perhaps this more democratic art would present new alternatives, new perspectives and new ideas, perhaps its influence could extend into politics and social justice. How much effect can art have in a closed off niche group being bought by the people within power in order to control its ideas and subvert them in to a high end commodity? The spectacle that is swallowing the art world could start to disappear. Money would still be a part of art in this alternate art world, but it would spread out a little more evenly with a lot less glare distracting one from the work. It would actually address some of the real debt that most artists have found themselves in, instead of floating around the Blue Chip Gallery satalite branches showing the same product worldwide. Maybe I’m just dreaming, but it seems to me that it is time to affect real meaning in art.
- Media Theater - January 14, 2015
- The Armchair Critic: Mike Kelley’s “Channel #1, #2, #3” - December 10, 2014
- In a Clutter of the Digital made Physical, Tiny Diamonds in the Expanding Ruff - November 12, 2014
