The Ends of Art
Kirk Hughey
if you’re investing in art in order to make money, you’re a fool… from an
investment point of view, you’d be better off putting your money in lottery
tickets.” (an anonymous London art-dealer)
Increasingly
we can see the art-world as a purely commercial enterprise fueled by strategies
similar to corporate merchandising. But the questions remain; why does it work
and can it last? When a visit to Boone or Sonnabend offers little more
experience than a walk through the local mall, why change clothes and suffer
through theory? The only incentive for the rich and socially ambitious can be
the dual prospect of arty cachet and speculative profit.
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Koons
and Murakami offer their versions of quotidian toys in various stages of
inflation. A noted reviewer leads the cheers by applying the terms; “cosmic”,
“mystery”, “halcyon” “redeeming”, and “mystical” to a show of Koons. Doesn’t
leave much for Leonardo does it? Hirst and Barney present spectacles that are
feeble versions of Hollywood or Las Vegas: from stage-show to Texas Chainsaw
Massacre. Currin combines cartoon exaggeration and sentimental quotation;
soft-porn comix meets Hallmark cards. By co-opting the forms and styles of
popular “mass art”, without their context of its value as entertainment, the
art of galleries and curators only proclaims its impotence – it cannot compete
on the popular level and offers nothing of its own. Now the most rewarding art
will be found by patient search far outside the borders of the art world. The
art of Barney is insignificant compared to that of his roommate.
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Implicitly,
the art world also functions as a covert form of proto-fascism where the
“popular” is exploited as a means of enriching a few through the collusion of
commercial and state-supported interest. The comparatively innocent whimsy of
the popular object is perverted into an elitist fetish. Pseudo-leftist costumes
hide the “greed is good” of Wall Street. The strategy is successful because no
quality of intelligence, imagination, sensitivity or experience is necessary,
only a willingness to follow the dictates of self-anointed authority with the
adoption of fashionable attitudes. Irony makes it all possible – not genuine
irony but the false sophistication of irony as pose. Cynicism is the only
affect allowed. This makes it possible to indulge any degree of sentimentality,
crude sensation or puerile attachment as long as the required pose is
maintained – the vacuous rich can feed their appetites and still be hip and
trendy. Thus, one of three casts of “Michael Jackson and Bubbles” by Jeff Koons
can sell for an amount equal to the lifetime incomes of 150 Afghan families
instead of a few dollars at the local Walmart.
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When
Abstract Expressionism became established as a major movement in international
art, its products became valuable on the same level as those of established
European art. In short, worth the same kind of money. The success of Pollock in
the market confirmed this and spread to include others in the group. For the
first time it became possible for American artists (and their cadre of
followers, including curators, critics and collectors) to become both famous
and rich. Sometimes very rich. The art market itself at this point also became
noted as an investment/speculative market, not unlike the stock or commodity
exchanges, and money flowed into art on an unprecedented scale.
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If a
market becomes established the next problem becomes how to keep feeding it.
This requires more product that somehow can be easily recognized and
objectively identified (or branded). There must also be some sort of “planned
obsolescence” so that new products can be introduced at entry level to fuel
speculation without eliminating the value of the old – which themselves become
stabilized as “blue-chip” investments. The speculative vehicles have to be
recognizable in some way to a small group of “insiders”(so everyone doesn’t
jump on the bandwagon immediately and drive the offering price too high). The
criteria can’t be too esoteric or depend on subjective values – they have to be
identifiable on some simple basis or, alternatively, dependent on identifiable
“experts” who can determine value by their opinion. So much for finance 101.
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Finally
we get to art that is strictly “idea”. Any idea will do and, since
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is irrelevant, this becomes a major breakthrough because anything
made by anyone can become product to feed the money-machine. Professor Danto
professes the “end” of art as a search for itself and claims that now “anything
can be art”. Whatever the validity of his underlying theory (including some
vague promise of “embodied meanings” – though anyone familiar with the human
animal knows its propensity for arbitrarily assigning any meaning to anything),
this is taken to be no more than acknowledgement of existing fact. It does
serve though to justify fact by the credibility of philosophy – thus taking
value distinctions out of the messy hands of artists and handing them over to
experts like curators, writers, dealers – and philosophers.
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Did
this result in a condition of “pluralism” in art or to the obvious conclusion
that if anything can be art, then everything, in potentia at least, is art and
everyone an artist? Of course not, that would be self-defeating and would end
with the elimination of the art market. It resulted in art that can only be
distinguished by its “projected” meanings, which in turn can only be determined
by selected interpreters on the basis of perceived changes in fashion. Art and
money are now synonymous. In fact, the very term “art” is now dispensable save
for some nostalgic connection, like an ancestor’s portrait in a vault.
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Just
for an example of the prevailing state of the art, we can look at the Turner
Prize awarded annually in Britain. This prize serves as a distinguishing mark
of collectible contemporary art. Simply making it onto the “short-list” is
enough to consolidate an artist’s reputation declaring both the value of their
work and its potential appreciation in price. There is an age limit for the
nominees- one imagines that is because a younger artist is considered a better
speculative investment offering more opportunities for multiplying profit. The
jury is typically composed of five members. In all twenty years of the Turner
Prize no artist has been on the jury. In all twenty years a member of the
Patrons of New Art has been on the jury (thus in a position to help qualify
investments they have made or intend to make). The director of Tate Modern,
with undeniable influence in the museum world, has always been on the jury,
along with annually selected representatives from other museums or art
institutions (people lower on the museum pecking order so they might consider
the benefits of following the lead of the Tate?) Occasionally there will be a
representative from an art publication – one prominent enough to be dependent
on dealer advertising and connections with museum personnel.
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How
long will these conditions prevail in the art world? Maybe a very long time. We
might wonder what could bring an end or change. Perhaps a large body of
investors will realize that the market can be controlled by a few very rich
collectors (like the fabled market “corner” sought in other venues) and will
leave for more democratic pastures. New investors with a more independent view
of value might enter the market, driving down the prices of the old status quo.
It could also just end when investors generally realize the market has no more
foundation than that of the dot-coms before the bust or Enron before the
whistle was blown. Unfortunately when the market does crash it will likely take
everyone with it. In today’s world the value of money, like superstition,
depends on gullibility. It can end the first time the charm fails.
