« These Tudors Aren’t on Showtime | Main | Beautiful Inside My Head Forever »
As the Market Turns
By caryn | September 11, 2008
The art market and the art world seem to be more intertwined than ever these days. One seemingly doesn’t seem to exist without the other and whether the market is declared good or bad its influencing powers over art is evident, though not always in the way that we might want it. Even the fact that I’m even writing this post about the “market” shows its infiltration.
After all of my years in the commercial gallery business, I would be extremely naive to think that art, artists, and the rest of the art world could survive without the ability to make a profit off of what we do. We all need to eat, I understand that and most of us work extremely hard and deserve some just rewards. But what we’ve seen in the past couple of years with the success of the art market (which sometimes I believe was nothing more than a marketing tool) is a general dumbing down of work - rather than taking risks, people are making objects to sell. I’ve seen first hand how ideas of marketability have also adapted the way some people look at art. Questions such as “how much has sold?” or “where have he/she shown?” or “what collections are he/she in” dominant rather than discussions about the body of work itself. And now with the slowing down of the art market one has to wonder what will come next? Will the separation from the lure to make big bucks quickly require artists to create riskier work, take more changes, make something different? Will it weed out the bad galleries/artists or will it weed out the good ones as well?
I think we’re in danger of swiping the middle generation of artists and galleries under the rug. With the current market down-turn/recession yet still high auction prices, my prediction is that those buyers with the money and those artists who are already significantly established will continue on their successful path. The old adage: the rich get richer applies with a greater divide between the have and have-nots. The risk we’re taking is that five years from now when the market is strong again we will have a gap, missing those who are currently emerging/mid-range artists and galleries; those who did not get an opportunity to develop. Who will then be the next Murakami and Hirst, the next Blum and Poe?
I discussed this yesterday at lunch with an art writer friend after we saw Damien Hirst’s Beautiful Inside My Head Forever auction “show” at Sotheby’s (note: this will be another post as clearly this post is long enough already). He mentioned that when asked “what’s the scene like in London” he finds it difficult to define or direct someone to a specific current movement or cohesion. It’s like that in Los Angeles now too. Nothing seemingly works together to build itself into a major driving force; individuality influenced by globalization? Areas like Viner Street/east end in London and Culver City and Chinatown in L.A. should be hubs for the most innovative art work but they’re in actuality quite tame. And if they’re tame we must ask why is this so and what will the ramifications of this neutralized art be in the next decade?
A lot of questions posed here without any real clear answers, just a prompting of more discussions. In regards to what can be done to save the next generation, our generation, seems easy enough to me - those with the buying power need to stop relying on what’s already proven, trust their eye, and start supporting what is not yet a sure thing. In reality, this requires a very unique individual. Someone who, like the best gallerists and artists, have the guts to be an individual, trust their instinct, and realize that art has meaning that, just sometimes, transcends the market. There are those in the art world who are innovative and who I trust are in it to be apart of the future - I just want to make sure they have their chance to succeed.
Topics: Editoral |
September 12th, 2008 at 5:02 am
If a downturn in the market means that some artists will not be able to develop… then good riddance. However, I don’t imagine that this will be the case. Rather, it will be the mid-market galleries who will fall by the wayside, in the same way as many a mediocre independent record label in the past decade. Will artists suffering from poor sales opt to take a course in tax preparation simply because they aren’t having dollars (excuse me: Eruos, Pounds, Krugerrands-what have you) lavished upon them?
Certainly not artists of any substance.
The artist remains the same. It’s the dealer who has to scramble. Artists have to make art before dealers can begin to put food on their table - a fact that lays bare the mercantilism of the gallerist, and the prostitution of many artists.
An economic downturn might be just what we need to wash away the hundreds of hacks who ticked the “art” box on their college application simply because it seemed so far removed from “business.”
Perhaps a double major was in order.
If we are to expect bold gallerists to step up and save the not-yet-household name artists from the shallow consumers who are only concerned with how much the artist has sold, to whom, and where the work currently hangs… then that galleries needs to stop relying on these marketing tools as their stock in trade!
Is this a realistic suggestion? Can we expect inherently commercial enterprises (save those whose business model is, “I’m an old rich guy, I have a gallery so I can have sex with young women”), to operate as altruistic enterprises? To do so would be financial suicide.
So perhaps we should stop waiting for the apple tree to produce an orange. Perhaps we need to look beyond galleries and museums as wet nurses to talent. Perhaps it’s time we found a third way.
September 12th, 2008 at 5:03 am
P.S. I am drunk.
September 19th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
[...] There really couldn’t be a better time for Robert Hughes’ “The Mona Lisa Curse” to air on Channel 4 than now. With the Hirst auction explosion, the severe down-turn of the stock market, galleries closing but prices still rising, Hughes’ examination of the problems related to the commodification of art is poignant (and something recently discussed here). [...]