Bill Powers, China Chow, and a gallery note taker.
“We want from art…some experience free of ulterior motives.” writes Tom McCormick in his closing paragraph of Market Forces for The Museum of Moving Image website. In as much as anyone can define what makes good art, certainly McCormick’s labeled a good part of it. The author drew the sentiment at least in part from what he identified as “the sadest of [Bravo’s Work of Art] many sad moments” — the Children’s Museum episode. “The challenge zeroes in on at least two of the things that a lot of people want from art: revelation and vulnerability.” McCormick observes, “But don't these things only mean something if we somehow feel they're freely offered?”
I told Time Magazine, “the episode was just an excuse to to pry conflict and personal narrative out of the contestants”, but the quote above gets a little closer to the core of the issue. As for the what the article’s title has to do with art’s labeling and reception — a teaser:
Discussions about art and society tend to break down along a few fault lines that relate to the status of art and the status of the market. We could break the debate down into four positions, or ideal types: a) pro-market, pro-art, b) anti-market, pro-art, c) anti-market, anti-art, and d) pro-market, anti-art. Pro-market, pro-art people hold that art is a part of the market, and that this is good because the market, while it may have its problems, is sort of electively democratic and produces quality. People who subscribe to this view are usually intellectuals who made their way outside of the academy—Clive James and Dave Hickey come to mind—and they usually have a bone to pick with avant-gardism, and think that art would do better to pay more attention to audiences; in other words, that art often fails because it's not involved enough with the market.
I recommend reading the piece in its entirety here.
{ 42 comments }
Everyone’s “involved with the market,” artists or otherwise, whether they like/know it or not. However, there are degrees to this involvement. WANGA is knowingly, gleefully “involved with the market” and uncritical of using an art-themed reality show to perpetuate its effluvia of aspirational-lifestyle products & thinking. All of WANGA’s content was necessarily calibrated to reinforce this singular and utterly transparent task. It’s noble that everyone’s trying to talk about other topics by way of WANGA, but this is as annoying/problematic as how people try to talk about “sexuality,” “feminism,” “Otherness,” etc., by way of Lady Gaga.
p.s. – Did McCormick invoke the same Semiotic Square to arrive at his “four positions” that Davis employed for his recent article: http://bit.ly/d9nsYP ?
Everyone’s “involved with the market,” artists or otherwise, whether they like/know it or not. However, there are degrees to this involvement. WANGA is knowingly, gleefully “involved with the market” and uncritical of using an art-themed reality show to perpetuate its effluvia of aspirational-lifestyle products & thinking. All of WANGA’s content was necessarily calibrated to reinforce this singular and utterly transparent task. It’s noble that everyone’s trying to talk about other topics by way of WANGA, but this is as annoying/problematic as how people try to talk about “sexuality,” “feminism,” “Otherness,” etc., by way of Lady Gaga.
p.s. – Did McCormick invoke the same Semiotic Square to arrive at his “four positions” that Davis employed for his recent article: http://bit.ly/d9nsYP ?
Wow, nice article. Very cutting. You know the cliche sentiment “I don’t know anything about art but I know what I like”? This isn’t too far off the mark. We seem to have an INTUITION about what is good, or genuine, or beautiful, without being able to point to any formula or series of rules about what makes it so. But on the other hand, it is very easy to point to specific things that make something trite, or ugly, or calculating, or poorly thought/executed. We criticize WOA because it seems to suggest that there IS a “formula” for success (it doesn’t, and there isn’t) while the mistakes and pratfalls made by the contestants are amplified and critiqued as though their IS a checklist of “what not to do” (and actually, it seems as though this does exist).
The article had a good bit about why we always go back to Warhol: because everybody can read into him exactly what they want to see. Which echoes something I wrote a bit earlier today (and in the process, now believe): that the best art is a mirror held up to the viewer, not to the artist.
Thanks for posting.
Wow, nice article. Very cutting. You know the cliche sentiment “I don’t know anything about art but I know what I like”? This isn’t too far off the mark. We seem to have an INTUITION about what is good, or genuine, or beautiful, without being able to point to any formula or series of rules about what makes it so. But on the other hand, it is very easy to point to specific things that make something trite, or ugly, or calculating, or poorly thought/executed. We criticize WOA because it seems to suggest that there IS a “formula” for success (it doesn’t, and there isn’t) while the mistakes and pratfalls made by the contestants are amplified and critiqued as though their IS a checklist of “what not to do” (and actually, it seems as though this does exist).
The article had a good bit about why we always go back to Warhol: because everybody can read into him exactly what they want to see. Which echoes something I wrote a bit earlier today (and in the process, now believe): that the best art is a mirror held up to the viewer, not to the artist.
Thanks for posting.
Wow, nice article. Very cutting. You know the cliche sentiment “I don’t know anything about art but I know what I like”? This isn’t too far off the mark. We seem to have an INTUITION about what is good, or genuine, or beautiful, without being able to point to any formula or series of rules about what makes it so. But on the other hand, it is very easy to point to specific things that make something trite, or ugly, or calculating, or poorly thought/executed. We criticize WOA because it seems to suggest that there IS a “formula” for success (it doesn’t, and there isn’t) while the mistakes and pratfalls made by the contestants are amplified and critiqued as though their IS a checklist of “what not to do” (and actually, it seems as though this does exist).
The article had a good bit about why we always go back to Warhol: because everybody can read into him exactly what they want to see. Which echoes something I wrote a bit earlier today (and in the process, now believe): that the best art is a mirror held up to the viewer, not to the artist.
Thanks for posting.
Wow, nice article. Very cutting. You know the cliche sentiment “I don’t know anything about art but I know what I like”? This isn’t too far off the mark. We seem to have an INTUITION about what is good, or genuine, or beautiful, without being able to point to any formula or series of rules about what makes it so. But on the other hand, it is very easy to point to specific things that make something trite, or ugly, or calculating, or poorly thought/executed. We criticize WOA because it seems to suggest that there IS a “formula” for success (it doesn’t, and there isn’t) while the mistakes and pratfalls made by the contestants are amplified and critiqued as though their IS a checklist of “what not to do” (and actually, it seems as though this does exist).
The article had a good bit about why we always go back to Warhol: because everybody can read into him exactly what they want to see. Which echoes something I wrote a bit earlier today (and in the process, now believe): that the best art is a mirror held up to the viewer, not to the artist.
Thanks for posting.
Anyone who thinks the art market is “effectively democratic and produces quality” is smoking crack. I’m not anti-market, just anti-market in it’s current form, in which quality is mistaken for the consensus between academic and moneyed elites as to what contemporary art “should” be. Ordinarily, artists would determine that, but alas, under current circumstances, they lack the freedom, economically and otherwise, to do so.
Anyone who thinks the art market is “effectively democratic and produces quality” is smoking crack. I’m not anti-market, just anti-market in it’s current form, in which quality is mistaken for the consensus between academic and moneyed elites as to what contemporary art “should” be. Ordinarily, artists would determine that, but alas, under current circumstances, they lack the freedom, economically and otherwise, to do so.
The link to the article is broken. This appears to be the correct link: http://www.movingimagesource.us/articles/market-forces-20100811
Aaand now it’s moved back to the original link. Weird. *Shrug*
The article does make some interesting points. I don’t have anything else great to add to the conversation at this point.
Aaand now it’s moved back to the original link. Weird. *Shrug*
The article does make some interesting points. I don’t have anything else great to add to the conversation at this point.
Aaand now it’s moved back to the original link. Weird. *Shrug*
The article does make some interesting points. I don’t have anything else great to add to the conversation at this point.
The link to the article is broken. This appears to be the correct link: http://www.movingimagesource.us/articles/market-forces-20100811
The link to the article is broken. This appears to be the correct link: http://www.movingimagesource.us/articles/market-forces-20100811
The link to the article is broken. This appears to be the correct link: http://www.movingimagesource.us/articles/market-forces-20100811
Aaand now it’s moved back to the original link. Weird. *Shrug*
The article does make some interesting points. I don’t have anything else great to add to the conversation at this point.
That is an excellent essay – thanks for the link!
One tiny quibble I have with the excerpt you chose and the essay in general is a conflation of audience with market. Just as museums lose some edge when they translate the notion of their public into tickets sold, art criticism misses out when paying attention to audiences is strictly associated with marketing saavy. Caring about audience reception doesn’t necessarily mean striving for the biggest audience possible, it can just mean doing your best to make successfully communicative artworks. Part of the problem is that if market and audience are conflated then artists who are supposedly anti-market are also supposedly anti-audience – and that perpetuates this tiresome idea of the artist as an ego-centric narcissist wanking off in a garret.
That is an excellent essay – thanks for the link!
One tiny quibble I have with the excerpt you chose and the essay in general is a conflation of audience with market. Just as museums lose some edge when they translate the notion of their public into tickets sold, art criticism misses out when paying attention to audiences is strictly associated with marketing saavy. Caring about audience reception doesn’t necessarily mean striving for the biggest audience possible, it can just mean doing your best to make successfully communicative artworks. Part of the problem is that if market and audience are conflated then artists who are supposedly anti-market are also supposedly anti-audience – and that perpetuates this tiresome idea of the artist as an ego-centric narcissist wanking off in a garret.
Good point! The “audience” was totally left out of this story!
That is an excellent essay – thanks for the link!
One tiny quibble I have with the excerpt you chose and the essay in general is a conflation of audience with market. Just as museums lose some edge when they translate the notion of their public into tickets sold, art criticism misses out when paying attention to audiences is strictly associated with marketing saavy. Caring about audience reception doesn’t necessarily mean striving for the biggest audience possible, it can just mean doing your best to make successfully communicative artworks. Part of the problem is that if market and audience are conflated then artists who are supposedly anti-market are also supposedly anti-audience – and that perpetuates this tiresome idea of the artist as an ego-centric narcissist wanking off in a garret.
That is an excellent essay – thanks for the link!
One tiny quibble I have with the excerpt you chose and the essay in general is a conflation of audience with market. Just as museums lose some edge when they translate the notion of their public into tickets sold, art criticism misses out when paying attention to audiences is strictly associated with marketing saavy. Caring about audience reception doesn’t necessarily mean striving for the biggest audience possible, it can just mean doing your best to make successfully communicative artworks. Part of the problem is that if market and audience are conflated then artists who are supposedly anti-market are also supposedly anti-audience – and that perpetuates this tiresome idea of the artist as an ego-centric narcissist wanking off in a garret.
Good point! The “audience” was totally left out of this story!
The important issue here is to differentiate market from audience. In New York, when I lived there until recently, I could say that the audience for art is mostly made up of artists. Regardless of whether one is making a living out of it or not. However, those who support the artists – curators or dealers – are a small minority.
So in art – unlike say, music, those who buy it somehow are NOT the ones who will necessarily alter it or take it further. To use the now cliché example of the Velvet Underground selling 200 records but every single person who bought that record went on to become a musician, that DOES NOT happen in art. The people who buy art or hang it in museums (50 or 100 people for a well-known artist, say) , do not go on making art. So art has a distribution problem because in order to be bought it has to be market or curatorially friendly in the easiest most digestable way. But the market/museum is NOT the audience, but it controls how art is seen. So we have a distribution monopoly that can’t be broken.
It’s as if a major label presented itself as “indie” because it doesn’t matter anyway what the art IS. So we have a situation where Kei$$ha or whatever is presented as Arcade Fire to the 5 people who are deaf. And they buy it. It gets passed on to the audience at large who actually can hear and have to pretend Kei$$ha is indeed Arcade Fire. At least in music, anyone can have access to it. In art, that is really not the case.
So yes, we, the audience, at large, have great attachment to art and to its greater powers. I know I do. But the question is, if the “art” I’m into is not in the market, how does it get distributed? It doesn’t. I agree that art has to go beyond its borders but in order to do that it can’t be “art”(i.e. super exclusive objects/curatorially “correct” choices) , it has to be accessible to people who aren’t billionaires. In a way I think art – right now – is too complacent and it doesn’t deal with the commonplace of people’s everyday lives. People can’t relate. Why is it that ANYONE can relate to music and most people have to become very educated in order to “get” it?
The important issue here is to differentiate market from audience. In New York, when I lived there until recently, I could say that the audience for art is mostly made up of artists. Regardless of whether one is making a living out of it or not. However, those who support the artists – curators or dealers – are a small minority.
So in art – unlike say, music, those who buy it somehow are NOT the ones who will necessarily alter it or take it further. To use the now cliché example of the Velvet Underground selling 200 records but every single person who bought that record went on to become a musician, that DOES NOT happen in art. The people who buy art or hang it in museums (50 or 100 people for a well-known artist, say) , do not go on making art. So art has a distribution problem because in order to be bought it has to be market or curatorially friendly in the easiest most digestable way. But the market/museum is NOT the audience, but it controls how art is seen. So we have a distribution monopoly that can’t be broken.
It’s as if a major label presented itself as “indie” because it doesn’t matter anyway what the art IS. So we have a situation where Kei$$ha or whatever is presented as Arcade Fire to the 5 people who are deaf. And they buy it. It gets passed on to the audience at large who actually can hear and have to pretend Kei$$ha is indeed Arcade Fire. At least in music, anyone can have access to it. In art, that is really not the case.
So yes, we, the audience, at large, have great attachment to art and to its greater powers. I know I do. But the question is, if the “art” I’m into is not in the market, how does it get distributed? It doesn’t. I agree that art has to go beyond its borders but in order to do that it can’t be “art”(i.e. super exclusive objects/curatorially “correct” choices) , it has to be accessible to people who aren’t billionaires. In a way I think art – right now – is too complacent and it doesn’t deal with the commonplace of people’s everyday lives. People can’t relate. Why is it that ANYONE can relate to music and most people have to become very educated in order to “get” it?
The important issue here is to differentiate market from audience. In New York, when I lived there until recently, I could say that the audience for art is mostly made up of artists. Regardless of whether one is making a living out of it or not. However, those who support the artists – curators or dealers – are a small minority.
So in art – unlike say, music, those who buy it somehow are NOT the ones who will necessarily alter it or take it further. To use the now cliché example of the Velvet Underground selling 200 records but every single person who bought that record went on to become a musician, that DOES NOT happen in art. The people who buy art or hang it in museums (50 or 100 people for a well-known artist, say) , do not go on making art. So art has a distribution problem because in order to be bought it has to be market or curatorially friendly in the easiest most digestable way. But the market/museum is NOT the audience, but it controls how art is seen. So we have a distribution monopoly that can’t be broken.
It’s as if a major label presented itself as “indie” because it doesn’t matter anyway what the art IS. So we have a situation where Kei$$ha or whatever is presented as Arcade Fire to the 5 people who are deaf. And they buy it. It gets passed on to the audience at large who actually can hear and have to pretend Kei$$ha is indeed Arcade Fire. At least in music, anyone can have access to it. In art, that is really not the case.
So yes, we, the audience, at large, have great attachment to art and to its greater powers. I know I do. But the question is, if the “art” I’m into is not in the market, how does it get distributed? It doesn’t. I agree that art has to go beyond its borders but in order to do that it can’t be “art”(i.e. super exclusive objects/curatorially “correct” choices) , it has to be accessible to people who aren’t billionaires. In a way I think art – right now – is too complacent and it doesn’t deal with the commonplace of people’s everyday lives. People can’t relate. Why is it that ANYONE can relate to music and most people have to become very educated in order to “get” it?
It’s “Ke$ha.” As with “team,” there is no ‘i’ in “Ke$ha.” There is also, unfortunately, only one dollar sign substituting the ‘s’ in Ke$ha’s name.
It’s “Ke$ha.” As with “team,” there is no ‘i’ in “Ke$ha.” There is also, unfortunately, only one dollar sign substituting the ‘s’ in Ke$ha’s name.
It’s “Ke$ha.” As with “team,” there is no ‘i’ in “Ke$ha.” There is also, unfortunately, only one dollar sign substituting the ‘s’ in Ke$ha’s name.
The important issue here is to differentiate market from audience. In New York, when I lived there until recently, I could say that the audience for art is mostly made up of artists. Regardless of whether one is making a living out of it or not. However, those who support the artists – curators or dealers – are a small minority.
So in art – unlike say, music, those who buy it somehow are NOT the ones who will necessarily alter it or take it further. To use the now cliché example of the Velvet Underground selling 200 records but every single person who bought that record went on to become a musician, that DOES NOT happen in art. The people who buy art or hang it in museums (50 or 100 people for a well-known artist, say) , do not go on making art. So art has a distribution problem because in order to be bought it has to be market or curatorially friendly in the easiest most digestable way. But the market/museum is NOT the audience, but it controls how art is seen. So we have a distribution monopoly that can’t be broken.
It’s as if a major label presented itself as “indie” because it doesn’t matter anyway what the art IS. So we have a situation where Kei$$ha or whatever is presented as Arcade Fire to the 5 people who are deaf. And they buy it. It gets passed on to the audience at large who actually can hear and have to pretend Kei$$ha is indeed Arcade Fire. At least in music, anyone can have access to it. In art, that is really not the case.
So yes, we, the audience, at large, have great attachment to art and to its greater powers. I know I do. But the question is, if the “art” I’m into is not in the market, how does it get distributed? It doesn’t. I agree that art has to go beyond its borders but in order to do that it can’t be “art”(i.e. super exclusive objects/curatorially “correct” choices) , it has to be accessible to people who aren’t billionaires. In a way I think art – right now – is too complacent and it doesn’t deal with the commonplace of people’s everyday lives. People can’t relate. Why is it that ANYONE can relate to music and most people have to become very educated in order to “get” it?
It’s “Ke$ha.” As with “team,” there is no ‘i’ in “Ke$ha.” There is also, unfortunately, only one dollar sign substituting the ‘s’ in Ke$ha’s name.
The guy in your photo that you identify as “gallery note taker” is actually the guy who was the artist/book-cover-designer-guest-judge that said if I “made a book cover for him he’d chase me around the world to find me and kill me!” I’m sorry they edited that out, that’s exactly what he said.
The guy in your photo that you identify as “gallery note taker” is actually the guy who was the artist/book-cover-designer-guest-judge that said if I “made a book cover for him he’d chase me around the world to find me and kill me!” I’m sorry they edited that out, that’s exactly what he said.
The guy in your photo that you identify as “gallery note taker” is actually the guy who was the artist/book-cover-designer-guest-judge that said if I “made a book cover for him he’d chase me around the world to find me and kill me!” I’m sorry they edited that out, that’s exactly what he said.
The guy in your photo that you identify as “gallery note taker” is actually the guy who was the artist/book-cover-designer-guest-judge that said if I “made a book cover for him he’d chase me around the world to find me and kill me!” I’m sorry they edited that out, that’s exactly what he said.
Thank$ Je$$e for correcting the over$ight and mi$$pelling$. U can tell I am not a native $peaker.
Thank$ Je$$e for correcting the over$ight and mi$$pelling$. U can tell I am not a native $peaker.
Thank$ Je$$e for correcting the over$ight and mi$$pelling$. U can tell I am not a native $peaker.
Thank$ Je$$e for correcting the over$ight and mi$$pelling$. U can tell I am not a native $peaker.
What interesting debates are continuing about this show? I work in a Museum with children. Who look at art, make art and come away with a sense of joy. Should I stop this activity in fear of these later responses? Unadulterated love of the simplicity of creating obviously plays no part here. When that is dead, sacrificed to alter of culture, is art dead?
What interesting debates are continuing about this show? I work in a Museum with children. Who look at art, make art and come away with a sense of joy. Should I stop this activity in fear of these later responses? Unadulterated love of the simplicity of creating obviously plays no part here. When that is dead, sacrificed to alter of culture, is art dead?
What interesting debates are continuing about this show? I work in a Museum with children. Who look at art, make art and come away with a sense of joy. Should I stop this activity in fear of these later responses? Unadulterated love of the simplicity of creating obviously plays no part here. When that is dead, sacrificed to alter of culture, is art dead?
What interesting debates are continuing about this show? I work in a Museum with children. Who look at art, make art and come away with a sense of joy. Should I stop this activity in fear of these later responses? Unadulterated love of the simplicity of creating obviously plays no part here. When that is dead, sacrificed to alter of culture, is art dead?
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