Running Parallel: some thoughts on the system
Walking the dog today by the Jardin Tino Rossi by the River Seine, for whatever reason, an interview that Kristen Dodge gave just over three years ago came to my mind. It was an "exit interview" she gave back in the Spring of 2014 when she decided to close her eponymous gallery in the Lower East Side of New York.
I have lived in Paris since 2009 and so the happenings in New York come to me through mostly virtual means. Whatever the case, I by luck had visited Dodge gallery that year for the first time, right before its closing. I had visited not knowing that the gallery was closing because an art colony acquaintance of my early youth had curated the group show on view and I was in the city for other non-related reasons.
Anyway, in the interview, Dodge discussed some of the reasons why she was closing her gallery.
Let's place the gallery's closing in a contextual framework. In the Village Voice, throughout 2013, Christian Viveros-Faune had written a number of articles critical of the art world and its system, including "How Uptown Money Kills Downtown Art," and "Art's Dirty, Big Secret." In the latter article, Viveros-Faune ends with quite the condemnation:
Robert Storr was interviewed for the article on Uptown Money, which Viveros-Faune called "a metastasizing and globalized class of dilettantish oligarch-investors who will do to art precisely what they have done to half of the apartments in Manhattan—cover it in mirrors, lacquer, and logos."
Jumping forward to today, the spring of 2017, with the Venice Biennale just opening and the inner workings of the art world not failing to show again that its supposed meritocracy, its need for artists to have an impeccable resumé and pedigree, may very well be an illusion if not a pure bourgeois fantasy, one wonders if Kristen Dodge was not right in closing up her gallery and spending her life doing something else other than chasing "dilettantish oligarch-investors."
Using Viveros-Faune's description, covering things in mirrors, lacquer and logos sounds very much like what Donald Trump does. And we all know that his inauguration was sponsored by his friends in the top of the Art World pyramid. So how complicit can one be within this crony system? That devil called "success" is perhaps not so invisible after all. In fact, it has been right in front of our eyes to be seen for many many years now. It is embodied currently by the most incredible demon of them all, our soon to be impeached president and his cronies.
***
Update January 31, 2018:
Hyperallergic just published an article about the Art Market/Art World media complex. It is a review of a documentary film called « The Price of Everything ». Here is a nice summary quote:
 |
| Sculpture in the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris |
I have lived in Paris since 2009 and so the happenings in New York come to me through mostly virtual means. Whatever the case, I by luck had visited Dodge gallery that year for the first time, right before its closing. I had visited not knowing that the gallery was closing because an art colony acquaintance of my early youth had curated the group show on view and I was in the city for other non-related reasons.
Anyway, in the interview, Dodge discussed some of the reasons why she was closing her gallery.
Losing the "art part of the equation" in order to succeed. Of course, success itself is a multi-headed beast. It is more like a demon really -- always taunting, always seducing, only to bring more and more malheur to all of us who are supposed to strive for it. Obviously for Dodge, she felt that in order to "succeed" in the system of contemporary art galleries, there would be compromise and she did not feel inclined to accept it. One can only admire that clarity of thinking."I spoke with a successful art dealer recently who dismissed the notion of a new model, observing that when people set out to do it differently, they wind up doing the same thing as everyone else. This particular person has decided to look the evil (not my word) and fallibility of the art world in the face, embrace it, become it, and use it for financial gain. It's a job at the end of the day, right? I admire this person's tenacity to succeed and survive alternately over the course of changing markets, and their track record of launching artists’ careers. But at some point along the way, this person admittedly lost the art part of the equation. All I could think was, what happened and fuck that."[- See more at: https://newamericanpaintings.com/blog/kristen-dodge-exit-interview#sthash.fOlM1pKA.dpuf]
Let's place the gallery's closing in a contextual framework. In the Village Voice, throughout 2013, Christian Viveros-Faune had written a number of articles critical of the art world and its system, including "How Uptown Money Kills Downtown Art," and "Art's Dirty, Big Secret." In the latter article, Viveros-Faune ends with quite the condemnation:
"The big secret in the art world is that today nearly everyone agrees that art is a dirty business, though few speak out for fear of banishment from the ultimate insiders’ club. It’s high time the art market was cleaned up: by the government, by self-regulation, but above all by a resolve among club members to straighten out a trade that, when measured against any other legal industry, is downright criminal."This Insider's club is the envy of many and perhaps the essential thing about it is that it is a pyramidal sort of structure and all the attention is usually focused on the top of the pyramid. In reality, it is quite an imperial system, but in this case, not only is the emperor not a single entity as Bernie Madoff was atop his pyramid, this emperor of many heads wears not just invisible clothing, the emperor is in fact a pure simulacrum based on the eternal values of the fantasy of being rich and famous, desire, and, of course, greed (yes, a paronomasia).
Robert Storr was interviewed for the article on Uptown Money, which Viveros-Faune called "a metastasizing and globalized class of dilettantish oligarch-investors who will do to art precisely what they have done to half of the apartments in Manhattan—cover it in mirrors, lacquer, and logos."
“Saying no is still an option,” Storr reminds his people. Just because the rot is pervasive 'doesn’t mean that artists have no agency or can’t say no to the system. Even if the game is stacked against them more than it has ever been, they still have volition'.”
“Art’s real problems have nothing to do with Larry Gagosian’s legal issues, or the fate of Jeff Koons’s or Damien Hirst’s prices, or even how some few important artists evade this monster financialization . . . how much of the world’s economy is tied up in art investments, and how that opaque economy is actually run. That is the $8 billion question. Ignoring that today and sitting around and worrying about who did what to whom—or things like late capitalism according to Adorno—is just jacking off.”
Jumping forward to today, the spring of 2017, with the Venice Biennale just opening and the inner workings of the art world not failing to show again that its supposed meritocracy, its need for artists to have an impeccable resumé and pedigree, may very well be an illusion if not a pure bourgeois fantasy, one wonders if Kristen Dodge was not right in closing up her gallery and spending her life doing something else other than chasing "dilettantish oligarch-investors."
Using Viveros-Faune's description, covering things in mirrors, lacquer and logos sounds very much like what Donald Trump does. And we all know that his inauguration was sponsored by his friends in the top of the Art World pyramid. So how complicit can one be within this crony system? That devil called "success" is perhaps not so invisible after all. In fact, it has been right in front of our eyes to be seen for many many years now. It is embodied currently by the most incredible demon of them all, our soon to be impeached president and his cronies.
Update January 31, 2018:
Hyperallergic just published an article about the Art Market/Art World media complex. It is a review of a documentary film called « The Price of Everything ». Here is a nice summary quote:
The Price of Everything is not about the love of art, but its exploitation, and that may cause some sincere aesthetes to cringe. Laymen, meanwhile, will likely remain baffled as to why big sculptures of metal balloon animals are selling for millions. The art market lays bare the absurdity of capitalism as a whole, in which value is not tied to anything tangible but to gambles based on trends.
Comments
Post a Comment