Eccentric Flower talk:200912/The Art Market

Jette:

There's a small movie called "(Untitled)" (yes, it's a dreadful title) that has great fun with the whole "what is art" concept, artists who don't actually make their own artwork, etc. If you get a chance to see it, you might like it. The main character is unsympathetic, which I know you generally don't like, but the movie as a whole is very darkly funny, and with a fabulous score. Would fit in perfectly with this discussion.

-- 21:05, 2 December 2009 (GMT)

Columbina:

I really really really wish I could get this blockbuster vs long tail item to you. You need to read it. If you can still find the issue (the cover story is "The Quiet American"), you want to read this. The article is called "A World of Hits," and it begins on page 79.

-- 21:10, 2 December 2009 (GMT)

Peebles:

Warhol's not all pop art. I saw an exhibit of Warhol's last decade of work last week at the Milwaukee Museum of Art, and only a few of the pieces were pop-art-y. I thought some of the work looked pretty dated, but on the whole, everything held up well. The show was pretty stunning.

As for this issue of Koons using technicians -- Koons is hardly the only, or even the first, artist to use technicians to create the actual physical art object. There's a long history of this sort of thing: LeWitt, Calder, Moore, Rodin, Picasso, Pollack, Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Man Ray. You can hardly criticize Koons for this without throwing out a lot of the most influential artists of the 20th century.

-- 21:46, 2 December 2009 (GMT)

Peebles:

And finally. I don't find the idea that "a competent artist is an insignificant one" to be an indictment of the art world at all. I think it's an accurate description of how any creative field works. It's certainly true in research science; a competent scientist can conduct well-formed studies that yield incremental advances and have a productive but unexceptional career. The great scientists are the ones who come up with something really different. And that seems okay to me.

Similarly, musicians. One can be a competent composer and make a good living churning out music for film scores and commercial jingles. But the great composers are the ones who do something really different and make some people with more conservative tastes (ahem) uncomfortable. Let's remember that Stravinsky caused a riot when The Rite of Spring was first premiered, and now it's considered a standard enough piece in the repertoire that high school orchestras play excerpts.

-- 21:55, 2 December 2009 (GMT)

Columbina:

I don't have a problem with Koons using helpers; again, my problem is (as I understand it, and my information on this may be old) that he's not entirely forthcoming about it. Basically my problem with Koons is that his public image seems to be largely, and deliberately, at odds with what he actually does - I can't abide pomp or fakery, as you know. But I will also admit that my opinion of him is affected by the fact that I personally find his art worthless/uninteresting.

The great scientists are the ones who come up with something really different. And that seems okay to me.

Agreed, but read the paragraph again. It's not about mere competence vs brilliance. It's about competence vs. showmanship. I believe in rewarding brilliance but I don't believe in rewarding showmanship. Similarly, I don't have a problem with "edgy" but I do have a problem with being edgy just for the sake of getting noticed. That leaves "edgy" and becomes "flashy." I fucking hate flashy.

-- 22:50, 2 December 2009 (GMT)

Peebles:

No, I understand about Koons. I'm not a huge fan, myself. But part of Koons' artistic project is the creation of himself as a persona. He may actually be as big of a boob as he seems to be through his artwork, but it's pretty clear that he's aware of his fame and is playing with the power of his own image some of the time.

I'm not aware that Koons keeps it a secret that he has technicians. If he's tried, he's failed spectacularly. But I just don't think it's an issue in the art world. Nobody acknowledges their technicians, nor do the technicians expect any of the credit.

I believe in rewarding brilliance but I don't believe in rewarding showmanship.

That's sort of a narrow knife's edge when you're talking about contemporary art, ain't it?

-- 22:59, 2 December 2009 (GMT)

Columbina:

>> I believe in rewarding brilliance but I don't believe in rewarding showmanship.

> That's sort of a narrow knife's edge when you're talking about contemporary art, ain't it?

Yes indeed - and I think this, and not any innate conservatism, is at the core of my general disdain for contemporary art.

-- 23:03, 2 December 2009 (GMT)

Bunny42:

"My analysis: As the older works are increasingly spoken for and immobile, idiots desperate for something to buy are turning to the work of the current crop of hacks and poseurs, inflating the prices for their crap and giving such people as Koons and Hirst the mistaken idea that they have talent or relevance."

"Collecting and appreciating art is primarily an affectation of the affluent."

These go hand in hand. I totally agree with your analysis explaining the rise of contemporary hacks. But it doesn't go far enough. Anybody who can stand before a snowy white canvass with a title and say that it speaks to them is obviously blessed with way more money than good sense. Affectation is the perfect word. Sean and I are still debating the artistic merit of John Cage's 4'33", as well as this particular comic, which I find appalling. Not just esoteric, I can hear Cage and Morgan-Mar laughing their collective ass off at people who take this stuff seriously. Talent nowadays seems to consist of finding ways to get the gullible public to buy your product. William Hunghas made a small fortune in music. There's no rational explanation for this.

-- 02:36, 3 December 2009 (GMT)

Columbina:

Well, here's the thing about Cage. Several things in fact.

1. He definitely had a sense of humor. A copy of Silence, where he writes about some of his ideas and is the closest he ever came to actually explaining anything, is very hard to find these days, but I've read it, and trust me, it's obvious when he's winking and how often.

2. He didn't charge for his frauds. He didn't grow rich off his frauds, nor did anyone else.

3. He was making an actual point or two. These days he has mostly been reduced to a single joke - 4'33" is what everyone knows about him, and that's not really fair. He was a pioneer of the idea that aleatoric (fully or partially randomly generated) music could be legitimate, for example.

What I remember most strongly about a Cage piece is a score which is marked in places with notations like "(adjust bench)," "(blow nose)," and so forth - the point being that any non-musical activities by the performer during the performance are also part of the performance - in fact there's no way they cannot be. This is also the message of 4'33", which people lose sight of. An actual performance of 4'33" in a concert hall is not silence - it contains the audience fidgeting and so forth. It's a joke, but it's a joke with something behind it, and more importantly it's a joke Cage himself knew was a funny-once; he didn't overdo it.

I suppose Martin Creed will come in now and say there was some sort of statement with similar intent in "The Lights Go On and Off," unfortunately, which shows the dangers of this - because why I accord Cage legitimacy and not Creed thus becomes indefensible. Ultimately it has to always come down to personal taste with art. I got what Cage was trying to do. I don't get that Creed or Hirst or Koons is trying to do much of anything except make money/news.

-- 03:14, 3 December 2009 (GMT)

Columbina:

There's an interesting comment quoted on that page you linked, Bunny -

The idea that all you have to do to make something art is put a meaning behind it is one that I have wrestled with over the years. The last time I wrote heavily about it was the Tom Friedman portion of "This Is Not Art" (which essay I commend to your attention).

Simply put, I have trouble accepting that concept alone can make something art. I think there has to be some point in that judgement where manner of execution - craft, if you will, for want of a better word - is a factor.

But then that, in turn, doesn't allow for, say, Primitive painters, who have lousy craft but are undeniably art - and, on the flip side, while I would be happy with a definition which excludes Mark Rothko from being "art" because he has no craft, my wife would disagree with me endlessly.

Eh. What a mess. Bottom line is, as I say, it's subjective - and we could all happily be leaving each others' tastes alone, and live and let live, except for one thing: Money. My tolerance grows dim when I see people shelling out for stuff I consider worthless - not that I care how they waste their cash, but because "what will it get at auction" is a value system people tend to respect more than they really should, which in turn means that I feel like the non-art which fetches that price is getting more respect/attention than it should.

Or, put another way, whenever I see someone pay tons of money for three meaningless Rothko swipes of color across an enormous canvas, I find myself thinking, "Christ, couldn't you take that same sum and use it to found studios for a thousand starving artists who actually make good stuff and could really use the cash?"

(It's worth reminding everyone, at this point, that my best friend is an artist who has basically resigned himself to the fact that he will have money troubles his entire life.)

-- 03:26, 3 December 2009 (GMT)

Peebles:

Primitive art is undeniably art?

-- 03:51, 3 December 2009 (GMT)

Columbina:

To be clear, I was thinking of Grandma Moses, not, say, the Lascaux caves. But either way I don't think I could make any sort of convincing case that was not art. Could you?

-- 04:35, 3 December 2009 (GMT)

Peebles:

No, I couldn't. But I don't think I could make a compelling case that they were, either. Or more to the point, I don't think I could make a compelling case to you that Rothko's color field paintings are clearly art if I wanted to. I'm just interested in what you mean when you say that something is undeniably art and something else isn't.

-- 15:19, 3 December 2009 (GMT)

Columbina:

Well ... I need a better word here because, again, this is mostly local and subjective. Let's put it this way: The "undeniable" was a measure of how willing I would be, personally, to go into a courtroom (or a heated dinner-table discussion) and make the case that X is not art.

I would be willing to take on the case that Martin Creed's lights and Hirst's formaldehyde slices and spinart and especially his goddamned diamond-encrusted skull are not art. I would probably be willing to take on the case that Rothko's swaths are not art, although I'd lose. The next tier down would be stuff like Friedman's stunts and some of Koons' work (not all of it), where it's probably got art-like aspects but the "art" is so banal/trivial a part of the whole that I'd argue to have it drummed out of the regiment. Stuff like Grandma Moses, even if I don't appreciate it, I have no case. I have no basis to pin a "this is not art" argument on whatsoever there. That's the "undeniable."

I thought about this more last night, because I'm trying to come up with some sort of simple description of my tests - not to define art for anyone else, mind you, because that's folly, but to make it more lucid what the threshold-of-art is for me. (Then we can figure out how and where our definitions differ, which might be an interesting conversation.)

The closest I can come - and this still has some loopholes - is that

1. to me art must have an underlying idea, a point, a purpose, BUT

2. "I think it would be cool to make this" or "I think it would be cool to sell this" alone are insufficient purposes and are disqualified.

3. The weaker the purpose is, the stronger the craft must be to compensate. How strong or weak a purpose is varies with time and situation. "I am blowing up/spotlighting a totally mundane object in order to call attention to it in a way that has never happened before" was an extremely strong, even inspired purpose - the first time someone did it. It has weakened over time until now it has become nearly banal. It needs supporting material now - excellent technique, or some other idea to bolster it.

The whole gist of the paragraphs above, wiggly though they are, is to try to test what we cannot possibly know, which is the mental process of the artist prior to the creation of the art; how much thought the art was given, in other words. I need to believe that art was planned, that there was a deliberate artistic intent to its construction and an actual idea, in order to consider it art - as opposed to Hirst thinking "Hey, I'll cover a skull in diamonds and give it a weird title and then I can sell it to those idiots for tons of cash," or Creed thinking, "Hmm, I'll just wire a timer to the lights in this empty gallery and call it a day, they'll believe anything." I do not consider those valid artistic purposes.

If Martin Creed comes up to me and says, with a straight enough face to make me believe it, that he spent more than thirty seconds planning "The Lights Go On and Off," and tells me something coherent about what he was trying to say with the piece, I will give him a formal apology. But no one else has the power to do that but him.

Ultimately we cannot get in the minds of the artists, and Marshall McLuhan is not going to be standing in line next to us, so we have to guess, and the evidence we use to guess with is the art - the spoor the artist has left behind, the trail of breadcrumbs.

Oh, yeah, and just to muddy the water:

4. The artistic intent that by all rights should be weakest - "I simply want to depict what I see of the world the way my mind sees it" - is trump. It is inviolate. It can be anything from your toddler's drawing on your refrigerator to Grandma Moses to the sometimes sterile but often nearly photorealistic commercial portraiture of John Singer Sargent (whose work I adore, by the by). Doesn't matter how good it is, doesn't matter if your people look like Picasso mutants or what. If your purpose is to depict the world, you get a free pass. (I may not necessarily want to look at your works - Picasso's paintings do nothing for me, for example - but I will defend to the death their status as art.)

-- 16:02, 3 December 2009 (GMT)

Columbina:

One more note, taken from the Wikipedia page on Hirst:

I want to know of art that there is something there at the end of the day, after the bright colors and shock value have faded.

-- 16:16, 3 December 2009 (GMT)

Iain:

Only slighly apropos of this discussion, Hirst is rapidly becoming an art museum conservator's despair.

I was at a conference where they talked about an issue that had come up with one of the formaldehyde slice things. It seems that, no matter how strong the solution, formaldehyde will eventually stop preserving whatever is in it. (Which makes perfectly good sense.) The only way to keep it going is to replace the formaldehyde regularly. Even then, eventually the powers of formaldehyde will fail, and over time, the slice of whatever will decay to the point where it's no longer preservable. They had to go after him to come up with procedures for replacing various things, including what to do when he's no longer around to do the replacements himself. That also brought up the very real question of whether, once you've replaced the entirety of the actual substance of the work, it can reasonably be presented as the same work in the first place. (Things haven't gotten that far with any of his stuff, as far as I'm aware, though I think chunks of the original tiger shark may have been replaced.) I mean, once you have a third party cutting up random sharks or sheep or whatever and putting them into the place of the original -- or replacing the replacement of the original by the original artist, even -- what exactly do you have? (A mess, I say, but then, anyone trying to convince me that what Hirst is doing with that stuff is art, in any meaningful sense, has a long road to hoe. But I digress.) It's a nontrivial matter for museums; an insurer could quite reasonably say, "You've replaced every part of this work at least once, there's nothing in it that was even touched by the original artist, therefore it's not the same work and we decline to insure it any longer."

-- 16:35, 3 December 2009 (GMT)

Columbina:

Of course Hirst would disagree with that contention. From the wikipedia page:

So I suspect he would say that even if it's George Washington's axe, it's still his art because the idea was his.

(Any day when I get to link the Ship of Theseus page is a good day. Thanks!)

-- 16:40, 3 December 2009 (GMT)

Bunny42:

It validates your original description of the art world as insane and inexplicable to consider that conferences and museum curators and even insurance companies are devoting real, irreplaceable, serious thinking time to something as ridiculous as Hirst's slices and how to preserve them. Throw them in the dustbin and be done with them, already! What an arrogant clod. But then, he does have an audience, so who's the real dupe in the piece?

BTW, I was fascinated by the concept of George Washington's axe. I love this journal.

-- 18:08, 3 December 2009 (GMT)

Iain:

It validates your original description of the art world as insane and inexplicable to consider that conferences and museum curators and even insurance companies are devoting real, irreplaceable, serious thinking time to something as ridiculous as Hirst's slices and how to preserve them. Throw them in the dustbin and be done with them, already!

The issue for museums and insurers, though, is that they've frequently spent serious money on acquiring these pieces, or the people who donated them spent serious money.

Quite honestly, Hirst would have a lot more of my respect if he'd simply said, "These works are meant to be disposable; when they're no longer viable, chuck 'em out!" (And, to be fair, the impression I got from the presenter at the conference was that this may have been Hirst's first reaction; he seems to have been thoroughly nonplussed at the idea that someone would have wanted to preserve that shark forever, and then thoroughly amused at the concept, which was part of the reason it took so long and so many attempts for them to get preservation procedures from him. Museums, not surprisingly, were horrified at the thought of treating possibly millions of dollars worth of their money in that way, and pushed really hard for him to come up with actual preservation procedures.)

The conference, by the by, was overall talking about a lot of preservation and documentation procedures for different things. Hirst was just one example of a notably icky situation. It also talked about how to preserve works created by technology. There's one somewhere, and I can't remember what or where, where the person programmed in certain types of illusions produced by light and darkness, which then gets projected into a completely dark room. The problem with that is that it was done years and years ago. They wound up buying a lot of old computers that just get kept in storage against the day when one fails, so they can just swap it out. But in the not too distant future, they're going to run out of old computers, and more modern computers simply can't run the old program; I don't know the specifics, but there's something about the way that more modern computers work that means that most newer computers simply can't run the program. So once they run out of old computers and parts, that work of art disappears.

-- 18:52, 3 December 2009 (GMT)

Danima:

If I get aesthetic appreciation out of it and talk about it in similar ways as I do with art but don't try to convince you that it should or shouldn't be called by that name, is that okay? Or am I still part of the problem?

On the auction question: true, it's the physical object that's being sold, and it's out of the artist's hands. The problem is that the art market as an institution is a market failure, directing wealth towards tastemakers over artists. In that environment, the rational economic incentive is towards the kinds of self-aggrandizement you find so appalling.

-- 19:13, 3 December 2009 (GMT)

Columbina:

Danima: Absolutely okay. As I say, I'm having enough trouble trying to pin down my personal definitions of art; I'd never try to inflict definitions on anyone else. Like what you like. (And my art statements, I hope, will not be seen by anyone as stifling discussion.)

The problem is that the art market as an institution is a market failure, directing wealth towards tastemakers over artists. In that environment, the rational economic incentive is towards the kinds of self-aggrandizement you find so appalling.

Exceptionally well put, I think.

-- 20:11, 3 December 2009 (GMT)

Columbina:

See, Iain, I'm kinda fascinated with the idea of art that has a built-in lifespan or time limit. Although it really should be something that was built into the art intentionally by the artist, not a matter of technological obsolescence!

-- 20:12, 3 December 2009 (GMT)

ProfRobert:

I've been out all day, and you beat me to the George Washington's axe reference.

Here's how I'd go at defining art: It's up to the creator; it's art if the creator says it's art. But it's up to the viewer to say whether or not it's crap. I don't follow a lot of modern art, and I hate the three-stripes-on-a-canvas stuff that seems inexplicably to be so highly valued. My test is: If it looks like a fourth-grader could have done it; it's crap.

-- 23:08, 3 December 2009 (GMT)

Bunny42:

Robert, I agree, to a point. I'm particularly fond of Haitian primitive art, which is two-dimensional and looks like it could be done in elementary school. And yet, in its own way, it can be fascinating and compelling. I suppose Grandma Moses is the same sort of thing. But I'm not nearly as intrigued by her work as I am by the Haitian stuff.

-- 02:48, 4 December 2009 (GMT)

Peebles:

So why is it important at all to define what is art and what isn't? Nobody seems to be trying to say that this definition is anything other than personal and non-generalizable, so what's the use of having strict definitions of the word?

I mean, are we saying anything more complicated than, "Art is anything I like and respect, things I don't like or respect aren't art"? Or, is there something really important about having the wiggle room to say, "Okay, that's art, but it's really bad art"?

-- 15:49, 4 December 2009 (GMT)

Columbina:

Important? Who said anything about important? This is a bull session over cocktails.

I like knowing where other people's definitions stand in this matter, because it gives me a basis for comparison and also an idea of where tastes lie. Apart from that, there is no significance to any of this whatsoever.

-- 17:24, 4 December 2009 (GMT)

Peebles:

I mean important to you. (Generalized you, not just you, of course.) You said you were ready to defend to the death the status of Picasso as art, even though you don't much care for it. That's weird! Isn't that weird? That's weird!

And everyone is like this, you know? People get all worked up when you put found objects in a museum and call them "art", because they have some intuitive notion of what that word means that is horribly offended by the idea that a displaced urinal or a coke bottle can be "art." And people get so weirdly misty-eyed when they talk about art. I clicked through to the twitter feed of that guy you re-tweeted earlier this morning, and he said something like, "When fine art divorced itself from technical skill it became dedicated to eliciting a reaction rather than portraying the transcendental." (Portraying the fucking transcendental? What the hell kind of cuckoo yoga mat bullshit is that? Who says that??)

This topic seems to be weirdly emotionally fraught to everyone, even people who don't actually frequent museums or spend much of their time thinking about the art world. It's so weird! People are so weird!

-- 18:04, 4 December 2009 (GMT)

Danima:

Do you read Cat and Girl? I'm interested in your reactions to this one.

-- 20:41, 23 February 2010 (GMT)