NEWSgrist - where spin is art

Found Art (LES) Unmonumental 382

Found Art (LES) Unmonumental 381

Eat the Rich

Jeff Koons: Tulips

"When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich."

~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Christie's -> In The Saleroom: Jeff Koons’ Tulips, 15 November 2012

watch video of the sale

Jeff Koons’ Tulips realized $33,682,500, achieving a world auction record for the artist in the Post-War & Contemporary Evening Sale in New York on 14 November 2012.

via Reuters:

Occupy Art

By Felix Salmon, November 19, 2012

In the art world, the courtiers are revolting:

Dave Hickey, a curator, professor and author known for a passionate defence of beauty in his collection of essays The Invisible Dragon and his wide-ranging cultural criticism, is walking away from a world he says is calcified, self-reverential and a hostage to rich collectors who have no respect for what they are doing.

“They’re in the hedge fund business, so they drop their windfall profits into art. It’s just not serious,” he told the Observer. “Art editors and critics – people like me – have become a courtier class. All we do is wander around the palace and advise very rich people. It’s not worth my time.” …

Hickey is adamant he wants out of the business. “What can I tell you? It’s nasty and it’s stupid. I’m an intellectual and I don’t care if I’m not invited to the party. I quit.”

Hickey is only the highest-profile member of a pretty large group: people who are sick of playing bit parts in a game which has become entirely about money and ego, with the beauty and power of art having become just another commodity to be bought and sold. Art critic Jerry Saltz is another:

I still can’t stand it. How a handful of very very rich people with penises likes buying the work of a handful of artists with penises for very very high prices in public, in front of other people with penises and some very tall thin blond people with great shoes and no penises. Really.

The doyenne of art-market reporters, Sarah Thornton, has quit writing about the economics of art. She says there are a hundred reasons for doing so, including the fact that “tightknit cabals of dealers and speculative collectors count on the fact that you will report record prices without being able to reveal the collusion behind how they were achieved”, and that “it implies that money is the most important thing about art.”

Charlie Finch, too, smells the irrelevance of a world which has become irredeemably decadent in all the worst meanings of the word — to the point, this summer, at which he convinced himself that even the plutocrats would notice, and that the art market would be crashing hard, right about now. Obviously, that didn’t happen: it’s almost impossible to underestimate the obliviousness of the art-collecting elite, who are of course constantly surrounded by precisely the kind of courtiers — consultants, gallerists, even artists — who constantly tell them how perspicacious and important they are. Look no further than former commodity broker Jeff Koons, whose Tulips just sold for $33,682,500 at Christie’s: the last time I saw him he was in Davos, palling around with a Ukrainian oligarch, and generally solidifying his reputation among the people who really matter. Insofar, of course, that the people who really matter are the people you want to continue to funnel millions of dollars in your direction.

No, Charlie, the art market oligopoly system isn’t going anywhere: if anything, it’s more entrenched than ever. But the people without millions of dollars, the people who try to talk about art but find all conversations ultimately being about money — those people are, finally, getting fed up.

There’s long been a disconnect between critical acclaim and high prices, but so long as the art market pumped money into the broader art ecosystem, no one really minded that. Rather, what seems to have changed is that art — art itself, divorced from commerce — has been drowned in the flood of money. Even the most highbrow museums, these days, only devote major shows to artists who have proved themselves winners in the great game of selling to plutocrats.

This critique, of course, is not a new one, and the Occupy Museums website puts it well:

Museums must be held accountable to the public. They help create our historical narratives and common symbols. They wield enormous power within our culture and over the entire art market. We occupy museums because museums have failed us. Like our government, which no longer represents the people, museums have sold out to the highest bidder.

What’s new, I think, is the way in which such sentiments have started infecting much of the public face of the art world. Not everywhere, to be sure. Where there are markets, there will always be cheerleaders and outlets like Art Market Monitor serve the auction houses in much the same way that CNBC serves the NYSE. But now we have Jerry Saltz half-seriously proposing that all art just be sold at a flat price, and we have Sarah Thornton complaining about how tax evasion has become endemic in the market, and we have Larry Gagosian, in his latest court deposition, squirming when asked how a painting which was consigned to a New York gallery, and which was sold to a US resident, somehow managed to get sold out of London. How did the London gallery manage to acquire the work? “I don’t know the answer to that,” replies Gagosian.

Or to put it another way, the art market has stopped being a source of fascination and crazy numbers, and has started to be a source of sheer disgust. The auction records will probably continue to fall: the small group of ultra-high-end art collectors cannot easily be chastened. But I’m beginning to see the stirrings of something else: a more supportive and democratic art world, taken seriously by respected gatekeepers, which increasingly views the twice-yearly shenanigans at Sotheby’s and Christie’s as an obscene sideshow rather than as a true gauge of value. The shiny art selling for tens of millions of dollars is so dumb, and the caricatures who would emulate its success are so debased, that a lot of really talented artists and critics and curators and even collectors don’t even want in any more.

If you look back and forth between art collectors and rapacious venture capitalists, you rapidly come to the conclusion that if you compare the two groups, the art collectors come out so much worse. They’re similar in many ways: you have the “angel” early-stage investors who go bargain-shopping among the unknowns, all the way through to the big-money late-stage investors who make a fortune by investing in established names. And of course you have the majority of investors who don’t actually make any money at all. But at least there’s something honest about the VCs, and at least you can say that they sometimes create value.

The world of high-end art collectors, by contrast, has reached a level of obscenity that the art world more generally can no longer ignore. It’s been clear to the more politically-minded for a while, but now we’re seeing the mainstreaming of attitudes which used to be found only on the far left. Enough of living in a world where an artwork without resale value is worthless. Enough of feeling jealous when some idiot starts selling for ridiculous sums. Enough of a world where the levels of inequality make Nigeria seem positively egalitarian. Yes, artists need to make money, and yes, big collectors shower ridiculous sums onto the art world. But that money isn’t trickling down, and it certainly isn’t respectable. Here’s Thornton:

I have no problem with rich people. (Some of my best friends are high net worth individuals!) But amongst the biggest spenders in the art market right now are people who have made their money in non-democracies with horrendous human rights records. Their expertise in rising to the top of a corrupt system gives punch to the term “filthy lucre.”

Remember, this is no bedraggled Occupy activist writing these words; this is Sarah Thornton, who spent an entire chapter of her art-world book swimming laps at the Hotel Cipriani in Venice. Similarly, Dave Hickey was an art dealer himself, once, and has devoted his entire career to helping young artists become commercially successful. These people made their peace with the art market decades ago — but now, they are saying, it has gone too far.

One of the reasons why auctions attract so much fascination is that they’re pretty much the only place where you can see millionaires and billionaires competing, in real time, to see who can spend the most money on a given object. It’s quite a spectacle — but it has very little to do with art. Or at least, it has very little to do with whatever it is that most art lovers love. It’s fine to commercialize art, to sell it, to make money off it. Indeed, I wish that many more fine artists could do so. But let’s do so on a human scale. Because today’s art market is so much less than that.

Support 'Artists in the Kitchen': a project for social change brought to you by With Food in Mind

A letter from Nicole J. Caruth, Founder and Director, With Food in Mind:

Dear family, friends, and colleagues,
 
I hope that those of you who live locally are on the mend from the effects of Hurricane Sandy. I send my thoughts to those throughout the metropolitan region who will be rebuilding for some time ahead. Hurricane Sandy’s destruction in the United States as well as in the Caribbean has shown just how important it is to have strong communities when we face challenges. I am writing today to ask for your help to create a program that serves communities in need.
 
In July, I launched the organization With Food in Mind, which creates projects at the intersection of food, visual culture, and social change. We have already had some exciting moments, including a drop-in workshop for children at Greening the City, an annual eco-art festival in Brooklyn. Artist Jenna Spevack taught children how to make mini arugula farms while community chef Melissa Danielle prepared a healthy and delicious arugula and watermelon salad for the children and their families. This event was a wonderful example of our mission and the types of programs we’ll continue to offer. Through dynamic learning experiences that combine art and food, we aim to cultivate future generations of art enthusiasts and healthier eaters.
 
In the next month I am working to raise $6,000 to pilot Artists in the Kitchen, our afterschool program for youth from low-income communities and communities of color. Statistics show that African American and Latino children not only suffer disproportionate rates of obesity but also lack access to arts education more than other groups. I believe that increased opportunities for food and art education are essential to combating these statistics. Artists in the Kitchen can do this. The program fosters learning and appreciation of the arts through the lens of food. It will teach children about palettes and palates at a crucial time in their lives—when their tastes are still developing. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to help bring this program to fruition.
 
Donations will support the costs of our pilot program including: stipends for teaching artists, materials for the students, field trips to local museums and farms, and programs for parents. Our pilot will serve middle school students at the School for Democracy and Leadership located in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights. Although this school has a kitchen and farm onsite, they lack teachers and funding to make adequate use of these facilities. I see a clear opportunity here for our organization to make positive social change.
 
Artists in the Kitchen is a fiscally sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Fractured Atlas requires me to raise $1,000 from individuals before I can apply for grants; we cannot meet our long-term goals without them. Just ten contributions of $100 can fulfill this prerequisite and allow us to access more funding opportunities. Sixty contributions of $100 will allow us to also launch Artists in the Kitchen. Your generosity can help us make a difference in young people’s lives and set them on the path to better futures. Any and all donations are welcome and greatly appreciated. Supporters will be listed on our website and in all of our materials.
 
Contributions for the purposes of Artists in the Kitchen are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. Please make a donation here: http://www.fracturedatlas.org/s/campaign/693.
 
In addition to monetary donations, there are other exciting ways to support the project: Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and help us spread the word to your friends and colleagues.
 
Thanks so much for your support.
 
Yours,
Nicole

Riders on the Storm

Winkleman Gallery

via Artinfo:

As Galleries, Artists Limp Along, Donors Amass Millions for Sandy Relief Grants

by Rachel Corbett

Published: November 21, 2012

As Hurricane Sandy recovery efforts crawl forward in Chelsea, a growing number of donors are moving in to aid artists and galleries shaken by the storm. Upper East Side dealer William Acquavella has just pledged $100,000 to the Art Dealers Association of America’s Relief Fund, and one of his clients, who asked to remain anonymous, added another $200,000 on top of that. And all of this comes at the heels of Friday’s news that the fund had doubled its starting balance to $500,000.

“So many galleries are having a really rough time right now and have lost so much, we want to do whatever we can to help get them back on their feet,” Acquavella said in an email.

Today also marks the launch of one of the industry’s most ambitious recovery programs to date, a joint effort by the Andy Warhol Foundation, the Lambent Foundation, and the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, which together have amassed around $3 million for artists and art organizations in need.

“We hope we can give to most everybody who has been hard-hit,” said Christy MacLear, executive director of the Rauschenberg Foundation, which plans to contribute around $500,000 to the cause. Along with $2 million from the Warhol Foundation, that funding will be split between grants for individual artists, administered through the New York Foundation for the Arts, and grants for arts organizations, applications for which are available on the new site Emergency Grants. The Lambent Foundation expects to provide another $250,000 to $500,000 to the NYFA fund.

For spaces like Chelsea’s Winkleman Gallery, which sustained severe structural damage, rebuilding could take up to six weeks — and that comes during the crucial lead-up to Art Basel Miami Beach. “The future was cloudy there for a while,” said owner Edward Winkleman. FEMA rejected his grant application and he had little time to focus on his participation in the upcoming Seven Art Fair in Miami.

But then he applied for the ADAA grant and had a $10,000 check in hand by the end of the week. “What the ADAA has enabled us to do is move forward with a little more confidence — particularly important for galleries our size — and to make preparations for Miami.”

The award amounts vary case by case, but the foundation-backed grants are expected to range from around $5,000 for individual artists to $25,000 for organizations. “We don’t know yet what’s going to come in,” said NYFA executive director Michael Royce. “But right now you can apply for funding for damage to physical space, damage to a home or studio, loss of equipment or supplies, or reimbursement for cancelled performances or engagements — and it could be many more things.”

As of now, there are no application deadlines. “We may find more need,” said MacLear, “and then I’ll go back to my board and ask for more money.”