I think it is a fun premise and I like the comparison of the “refreshingly short” and eloquent statement from Akron Art Museum: “to enrich lives through modern art” with the tomes of MOMA, The National Gallery and Boston’s MFA.   The latter three of course were developed and approved by large Boards; and you know what they say about anything done by committee.   (Though to be fair, both MOMA and the National could have stopped at the end of their first sentences and done OK; while the MFA does a decent job with its last…)   András then goes on to draw parallels with the ongoing transition of Museums trying to more proactively respond to their market places and suggests that woolly mission statements are a symptom of woolly thinking about the role of Museums in the modern world.

It is a reasonable inference but may be too harsh.   Some people are just bad at being concise.   And the bigger the board the less concise they will be.   I do always admire any organisation (corporate or non-profit) that can encapsulate something important in a few words (so kudos to Akron) but just because they cannot explain simply what they do, doesn’t always mean they cannot do it.   Take a look for yourself (the links are above) and then visit your local grand institution over the holidays and make-up your own minds.   And if you feel so inclined do come back here and offer a comment.   In the meantime: happy festivities to all from everyone here at ArtWorld Salon.

Making its way across the web as I write is a story about the exploitation of performers at the hands of Marina Abramović.  ARTINFO is running the best recap of the story, and Hrag Vartanian at Hyperallergic has picked it up and carried it as well, but here’s a brief:

Abramović was tapped by LA MOCA to produce a performance work for the Museum’s annual gala.  The outcome?  Each table at the gala comes with a performer getting paid $150 to sit under it on a slowly-rotating lazy-susan with his or her head protruding up through the table’s center, which carries the promise of intermittent and likely uncomfortable eye contact throughout the evening.  One human-centerpiece-to-be was none too happy about such future prospects and sent a missive to Yvonne Rainer, presumably because Rainer’s position in the artworld is unassailable, her politics predictable, and her network far reaching.  Rainer in turn decried the spectacle in a letter to Jeffrey Deitch, which was published on the web as co-signed by Douglas Crimp, Taisha Paggett and, according to ARTINFO, Tom Knechtel and Monica Majoli.

In response to Rainer, Abramović told ARTINFO, “All these accusations, you can’t have them before you actually experience the situation and see how I can change the atmosphere [of the gala], that’s my main purpose.”  And in a comment to the LA Times, Jeffrey Deitch said, “I would just hope that when people make allegations like this, they would actually come to see the performance and talk to the performers.”  To make good on that, Deitch invited Rainer to a rehearsal of the piece.

A ticket to see this performance costs at least $2500, so entreaties to see it before judging it are disingenuous. But more importantly, such entreaties are missing the point of the work itself, which is odd, since they are coming from the artist creating it and the institution hosting it.

After all, to take part in the performance costs the performers their labor for at least the duration of the gala, but it also, as we know, costs the duration of the tryout and of the rehearsals too, and the value of this labor and time, as Abramović and the museum have priced it, is $150.  The tenor, if not the point, of Rainer’s letter, was to point out the exploitation of the performer in this situation, because the tenor, if not the point, of the performance itself, the thing that would make it possible for living centerpieces to “change the atmosphere” of the event, turns on the condition of their being exploited.

Which is to say, it is exactly the stark confrontation between the gala’s (monied) patrons and the (not-so-monied) performers-turned-centerpieces that is meant to be “experienced” and which gives the performance its reason for being—it’s the very thing that would make it possible, in fact, for Abramović to conceive of the work as something that might “bring some kind of dignity, serenity, and concentration to the normal situation of a gala.”  Would not the change of atmosphere be entirely different if, for example, Eli Broad and Larry Gagosian and Dasha Zhukova were sitting under those tables?  How would dignity or serenity or concentration ensue from such a reversal?—the whole point is that it would be a reversal, that such asymmetry between patron and performer is what the performance is about.

From one perspective, then, the thing that makes such a performance what it is is exactly the fact that most people—people who cannot afford to support LA MOCA by buying a gala ticket for $2500—won’t see it.  And what makes such a performance from another perspective is that the people who are “performing” in it are exactly those same people.  And it’s the confrontation between these two classes of people, the possibility of their mutual recognition, that makes the performance what it is—a performance of, if not about, exploitation. Seeing such a performance, and so “experiencing” it, if it is indeed to take place as described, wouldn’t change a thing.

[9/12 update: the LA Times runs a full story here.]

That said, I find the Occupy the Museums notion a bit too misguided (and more than a bit ironic) to let it go without comment.

In a nutshell the message of the Occupy the Museums effort is :

Museums, open your mind and your heart! Art is for everyone! The people are
at your door!

Let’s begin with the fact that despite $20 and $25 dollar entry fees, the people seem more than happy to keep passing through the doors of New York’s museums :

• Met Hits 40-Year Attendance Record
• MoMA Attendance Hits Record High
• Guggenheim Museum Sees Record Attendance

What’s more, they offer alternatives for people who can’t afford those fees. So there’s apparently NOT a serious “access for the people” issue here.

More specifically, Occupy the Museum’s rallying cry is:

For the last few decades, voices of dissent have been silenced by a fearful survivalist atmosphere and the hush hush of BIG money. To really critique institutions, to raise one’s voice about the disgusting excessive parties and spectacularly out of touch auctions of the art world while the rest of the country suffers and tightens its belt was widely considered to be bitter, angry, uncool.

Er…uh…the critique of institutions is alive (*cough* #class) and well (*cough* #rank) by artists like William Powhida (whose new show opens Saturday) and Jennifer Dalton (whose current show ends this Saturday. (Full disclosure, I represent Dalton, but that’s why I find the notion that institutional critique is being discouraged so out of touch, it’s also why I can report that BIG money seems to get and does indeed buy such art as well).

So there really is no “hushing” going on here.

So if it’s not that “the people” are being denied access to the museums, and it’s not that artists are afraid to critique the institutions, what is it really that this protest can accomplish?

Their stated goals continue:

The members of museum boards mount shows by living or dead artists whom they collect like bundles of packaged debt. Shows mounted by museums are meant to inflate these markets. They are playing with the fire of the art historical cannon while seeing only dancing dollar signs. The wide acceptance of cultural authority of leading museums have made these beloved institutions into corrupt ratings agencies or investment banking houses- stamping their authority and approval on flimsy corporate art and fraudulent deals.

This strikes me as a gross oversimplification of what motivates curators and museum boards to mount shows. Although there is a popular sense that inflating certain markets does occur to certain decision makers at times, most museum curator I know are indeed passionate about the artists they work with, and the persuasion going on is, generally speaking, from them to the board members, not the other way around. Furthermore, the correlation between museum shows inflating the value of individual collections has never been shown. That’s a red herring that does a disservice to board members who could spend their money on far less altruistic things than supporting art and museums.

But I think this text jumps the shark with claims of “stamping their authority and approval on flimsy corporate art and fraudulent deals.” What is or isn’t “flimsy” is a matter of opinion, and the history of art is nothing if not a shifting of opinions. As for “fraudulent” deals, I think I’d consult a good libel attorney before throwing that accusation around so casually and indirectly.

Ultimately, though, I find this an opportunistic and somewhat ahistorical argument. Take this line:

For the past decade and more, artists and art lovers have been the victims of
the intense commercialization and co-optation or art.

That’s only true if by “past decade” you mean “past few centuries.” And it’s only wholly true if you acknowledge that the victimizers (i.e., those responsible for the “intense commercialization”) include many, many artists as well.

Mind you, I think the protest should move forward and I’ll be very curious to see how the museums respond. I suspect they’ll accommodate the protesters as best they can.

I just don’t think the motivation as outlined in the official text is even remotely accurate and probably won’t be very productive. Moreover, I think a better way to get the museums to change (if that’s your goal) is to encourage people NOT to occupy them…but that’s just me.

Its that time of year: this week 22 overachieving individuals received a phone call from the MacArthur Foundation, telling them that they had received the famous so-called “genius” grant, totaling a no-strings attached amount of $500,000. The list of grantees this year includes a radio host, a parasitologist, a long-form journalist, a clinical psychologist, and others. Now, if you happen to be a genius in the visual arts, I am afraid you were left sitting by the phone. For whatever reason, this year’s grant panel determined that no awards would be given to the visual arts.

To be fair, the visual arts has had its share of awards over the years. Out of the 850 or so grants ever given in the history of this grant, around 46 have gone to contemporary artists (if you count a couple of those who do performance art but were awarded in the theater category). In contrast, music has received 36, dance and choreography 13, and only 5 architects can claim the “genius” mantle.

And still, one can’t help but have a slight feeling of rejection and perhaps collective self-doubt. Maybe we are not ready to announce that the artworld has run out of geniuses; but this symbolic absence reinforces two suspicions that at least I and others I know share: one, that the contemporary art practice, in its self-increasing insularity, is becoming less and less relevant to the rest of the world; and two, that as opposed to other periods in history, the most vibrant creative minds —the Leonardos of today— don’t go into the visual arts but into other disciplines like technology.

Added to this feeling is the fact that in New York today Creative Time celebrated its third Summit, this year entitled “Living as Form”, where we saw an interesting parade of presenters that ranged from socially —but also aesthetically— committed artists to activists who altogether work outside of the art world. The conference at times felt more like an activist conclave than an art gathering. Journalist and keynote speaker Laura Flanders eloquently called for artists to create spaces for people to connect; yet non-artists who work on the social and political sphere received such ovations that sometimes it felt that we were jealous of the freedom in which they created those connections, unburdened by art history. Yes, there are inspirational projects and artists— Mierle Laderman Ukueles moved the whole theater with her historically brave Maintenance Manifesto of 1969, and Jeanne van Heeswijk, this year’s Summit honoree, spoke about her deeply committed socially engaged projects. But the unmistakable feeling of the conference is that we appear to triumph when we reject, not when we embrace, aesthetics; that these projects are successful not thanks to, but in spite of, being artworks.

So the question could be: have the demands of the market system of art and its adjoining academic apparatus have stifled creativity to the point that we feel most creative when we are NOT making art? What does the art practice have to offer in terms of imaginative thinking today to other disciplines? Who would you say are our current visual art geniuses?

The verdict? Maybe. Or maybe not. They don’t call it the dismal science for nothing.

Adam Lindemann in the New York Observer compared art unfavorably to gold. “Despite all the talk of art as investment, and the fact that a lot of art has appreciated, I think you would still be much better off with gold,” he concluded. Noah Horowitz, answering interview questions in the same publication, said art has more in common with gold—as “as a durable good,” he argued, it “is attractive to people in times like this.” However, he cautioned, “If we see a decrease in wealth levels of the elite, that’s one way to gauge how art will be valued.”

With more gyrations almost certain to roil the financial markets, expect a spike in art-market prognostication in the weeks to come. Yet as Noah correctly points out, we’ll need to get past the big fall art fairs to get a true read on the market’s direction. In the meantime, here are three dynamics to watch.

First, will the bifurcated trend pattern separating hyper-luxury from everything else persist, or will a potential downturn be severe enough to sink all boats? The post-2008 experience tells us that horrible things can happen to the economy while the upper-upper tier of the market chugs along, relatively unscathed.

Second, has so much excess been built into the art market as to threaten a nosedive? Really bad art crashes happen when years and years hype and speculation drive up prices of historically untested art to unsustainable levels. Think 1991. Periodic crashes are severe because there is nothing “hard” in art to keep prices from falling, but they are also healthy in a Shumpeterian pruning sort of way. One may argue that after the hard crash of 2009 enough hot air has been siphoned out of the market to diminish this threat. But who knows.

Third, will public policy throw a curveball at the art market? By this I mean not just the potential effects of high inflation (as far as I know there is no definitive study on the relationship between inflation and art prices). I mean the very real possibility, especially in the United States, that lawmakers tighten the screws on the nonprofit sector. The implications of a reduction in tax benefits on art donations to museums, for example, cannot be ignored. It could remove a lot of demand, at the worst time.

These are just some thoughts to ponder as you return to your beach reading and your sunset cocktails. What other trends might reshape the markets in the months to come?

At an Art Basel dinner earlier this month, a dealer told me about a collector who missed a chance to buy a work on opening day because he came back to the booth “twenty minutes after the reserve deadline” – a prime froth indicator. There were signs of invigorated confidence everywhere.

The auction market is likewise pushing into boom territory, as last week’s London auction sales attest. Christie’s evening contemporary and post-war auction saw twenty-five works sell for over $1 million, including a 1953 Study for a Self-portrait by Francis Bacon for $28.6 million, two-and-a-half times above estimate. Netting $126 million, it was the second biggest sale in its category for Christie’s in London. Sotheby’s contemporary art evening sale did even better, totaling more than $174 million, the highest ever for a contemporary auction in London, with forty-five lots going over $1 million. Both sales produced stellar sell-through rates, set numerous records, and drew buyers from all over the world.

In the early build-up phase of a boom, the market can achieve a kind of self-reinforcing pattern. Formerly cautious sellers offer up material they were reluctant to test on the market earlier. Quality work stokes more buying and bidding, which coaxes more quality inventory off walls and storage racks, propelling yet more sales and price increases.

Will it last? Not all aspects of the market are doing equally well, and buyers are still sane enough to shun second-tier work. In an increasingly investor-driven market, some of the euphoria may ebb when the vast amount of capital currently waiting on the sidelines is poured back into the “real” economy. A national default or a US debt downgrade can quickly spook the market into paralysis. Yet once a cycle starts, it builds its own momentum.

The deeper cause of bullish buying is hardly a mystery, and it portends more record-toppling to come. According to the latest Merrill Lynch Cap Gemini World Wealth Report, wealth has further concentrated since the financial crisis. Between 2008-10, North America saw the number of millionaires rise from 2.7 million to 3.4 million. The ranks of millionaires in the Asia-Pacific region soared even faster, from 2.4 to 3.3. million. China alone has 535,000 millionaires. The report takes special note of a rebound in “investments of passion,” especially in Latin America and China.

What other early boom indicators are you seeing out there?

First, between the ebullience of the art fair and the dark financial clouds roiling over Europe, where states teeter on the edge of insolvency and people are taking to the streets. There is a yawning chasm right now between the revived luxury spending boom and the malaise that grips the bottom ninety-eight percent. The subject kept coming up, quietly but persistently, at parties around town.

Second, during an Art Basel Conversation I moderated on the future of museum collecting, a London-based curator from Bangladesh pressed the assembled directors, and in particular Chris Dercon of the Tate Modern, when and how they will genuinely engage his community and others like it—not just through occasionally showcasing artists, but in a deep way. All agreed that, good intentions and planned initiatives notwithstanding, we’re a long way from making art institutions truly inclusive.

The third contrast arrived by way of the 430-page summer issue of Artforum. The tome was not in my mailbox, which proved too small, but on my doorstep. It was shrink-wrapped with the current issue of Bookforum, which includes a review of a new book on the “internship economy,” by Ross Perlin. Titled Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy, the study documents the stunning and roundly depressing rise of unpaid labor in our creative industries. One can see why Bookforum reviewed it. The art world, it seems, can fill a glossy with almost as many ad pages as the September issue of Vogue. Yet how many of those ads were placed by young folks working for a pittance, or pro bono, just to get a shot at a job?

These disconnects—from broader economic reality, from cultural complexity, and equitable labor practices – point to chronic imbalances in the art world and in its relationship to society. One might be a wet blanket to bring them up in the midst of summertime fun. Even so, perhaps it’s not too romantic to suggest that art, and the institutions that advance it, should, among other things, engage our better moral senses and our common trials and aspirations, or risk irrelevance.

Any other disconnects on your radar?