Roundup

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009 - Nicholas Calcott

stoller
After that last post, I just couldn’t help posting an Ezra Stoller photo on this one

So I got back from Arles about a week ago, but getting back into the swing of things has proven a bit difficult.  We had a great time down there, but you’ll have to read more about the festival elsewhere.  In the meantime, however, my folder is overflowing with things to post, so I’m just going to have to clear away some of the more miscellaneous ones now:

Saltz on art

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 - Nicholas Calcott

Richard Prince
Richard Prince

Nyfa has a post by Hrag Vartanian on a lecture delivered by Jerry Saltz on where the art world is now.  It’s well worth checking out.  I especially liked the following point:

[Richard] Prince, he suggested, “invented a dangerous idea and packaged himself for the corporate boardroom.” He posited that the major premise of Prince’s art was appropriation, and that it was “the idea that ate the art world.”

Conventional Wisdom

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008 - Nicholas Calcott

Image courtesy of Dean Kaufman

So the global financial armageddon seems to finally be coming around to affect art and the art market. And critical opinion of what it means and what it will lead to seems to be solidifying. Take the following excerpt from a Jerry Saltz article on Frieze, from New York Magazine, as an example:

As for artists, too many have been getting away with murder, making questionable or derivative work and selling it for inflated prices. They will either lower their prices or stop selling. Many younger artists who made a killing will be forgotten quickly. Others will be seen mainly as relics of a time when marketability equaled likability. Many of the hot Chinese artists, most of whom are only nth-generation photo-realists, will fall by the wayside, having stuck collectors with a lot of junk.

Much good art got made while money ruled; I like a lot of it, and hardship and poverty aren’t virtues. The good news is that, since almost no one will be selling art, artists—especially emerging ones—won’t have to think about turning out a consistent style or creating a brand. They’ll be able to experiment as much as they want.

He goes on to wish a ‘pox on the auction houses,’ an opinion that seems to be widely shared. Jonathan Jones even dug up a quote from Damien Hirst that goes ‘Most of the time [the money men] are all selling shit to fools, and it’s getting worse,’ and that makes me want to bang my head against the wall given who it’s coming from.