"On Boredom (Being an art dealer amongst other things)" by Eric Mircher

[This is a continuation of my translations of Eric Mircher's original articles.  Please read this introduction for the background behind this project.]

     I remember, childhood summer vacations spent on the mid-Atlantic coast of France (la Charente),  when the heat of the day would stretch on and on for what appeared to be an eternity.  No television, no radio, just the blazing hot sun and the slow tick of the clock during these endless hours of summer when as children we searched for situations, amusement.  Of course, this usually ended up in the usual pulling of a new prank, trying to go past limits, rules, the acceptable.  We were twelve year olds then, it was fun and sometimes dangerous.

     I rediscovered this boredom when I started running my own art gallery.  Once the work is hung, what does one do ?  Obviously, they are to be sold, but how ?  I remember, again as a child, the street markets of Antibes or Nice, with my mother under the blazing sun of the Midi, where the tradesmen brought in their customers with smiles and charming words, the warmth of the South.  That southern hospitality is difficult, if not impossible, to practice here in Paris, where the temperatures are cold and the dealing of “Fine Art” requires restraint, respect, discretion, the unwritten rules of the trade.  So those winter afternoons in the early days of being an art dealer, once the electric charge of the opening of a new show had passed, with the few visitors passing through the under-heated space of the gallery, I discovered again the boredom of  being stuck in a place without having anything to do, like a fisherman waiting with pessimism for a big fish to bite the bait.  To make it as an art dealer, I had a few things to learn and unlearn.

     A lot of unlearning, really.  Any person who works for someone else, members of a team, and even a big art dealer's assistants are in many ways treated like a child.  One goes to work and waits for instructions.  Of course one could take the initiative of proposing new ideas (and I did do this when I worked for Thaddaeus Ropac, who often gave me free rein, allowing me to venture into Asia, but that is another story) but the structure and organization of the workforce, perhaps especially so here in France, remains very, and certainly too much so, built around the formula : Work = clocking in the hours + subordination.  The stultifying character of this type of economy is detrimental to all spirit of enterprise and creativity.  In this type of organization, boredom appears : work appears to be done in vain, the repetitious gestures of menial work, comparmentalized and repartitioned, disconnects one's efforts from the final product of labor.  Sometimes, this boredom trails off into an affective disorder, depression (see a fascinating elucidation of the subject by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu in The Weight of the World : social suffering in contemporary society).  And in the current economic situation in Europe, falling salaries and economic precarity do little to compensate for any worker's sense of life and time wasted, stolen.

     Creating my own gallery required new competencies.  I had to learn to master the full chain of action of being an art dealer and not just be one of the cogs in the wheel (from the selection of which artists to represent to their promotion, while all at the same time maintaining a viable business).  I also had to learn to master, at least partially, time.  The upside is that the extra effort is compensated by real dollars.  Certainly, there is real anxiety as I no longer have anyone else to fall back on.  My lifestyle took a hit,  but that is often the case for all who start a new business.

     The new found freedom of being my own boss : it was again as if I were a child on summer vacation, free to do as one wishes, without schoolwork but grounded and without means of diversion (no television, no Nintendo, no iPad).  Boredom, yes, but in yet another form.  What does one do with all this time ?  Some new art dealers drown themselves in feverish but useless activities and become completely caught up by their self-imposed frenzy ; others allow the boredom to take over, like a cold basement cellar, their gallery, the work that they present, seems embalmed and when one enters these spaces, one feels  as if one is disturbing another's long intimate sleep, Rip Van Winkle.  Whatever the case, starting out as an independent dealer, one has to re-invent oneself and learn new competencies, admit to ignorance and discover what else exactly there is to learn to make the wheels of the machine turn.  And all this takes time.

     So when one finally finds a rhythm, a groove, which essentially boils down to a habitual and effective practice, the boredom seems to ebb away.  That's a real relief, but it stays, hiding under the carpet, tucked away in corners and behind the walls of the new space.  No doubt, it resurfaces.  One learns to welcome its return, one figures it out and one learns to caress it like the cat that is rubbing its back on your legs.  There really is no need to fight it or chase it away, it is part and parcel of all human activity and is no doubt beneficial to well-being.  Poetically speaking, in the time and space of boredom, one needs to  travel through its labyrinth by using one's imagination.  One will pass  through countless crossroads with futile destinations, one will sometimes hit dead ends, but once in a while, even rarely, new and fertile ideas are imagined in Boredom.

• Article written by Eric Mircher
• (Translated from French by Roy Forget)