Dave Hickey no longer writes a monthly column for Art in America, but thank the gods Peter Plagens still does. Plagens is an artist, but also one hell of an incisive writer who writes with that sense of irony which makes anything I read these days worth reading. His almost-monthly columns have a way of clarifying reality, if only for a few minutes before the miasma takes over once more. Recently he was on a couple of panel discussions; and in this month's issue of AIA he writes about that. The fog clears for a few moments:
... [to Irving Blum (proprietor of the great Ferus Gallery, site of Andy Warhol's first solo show as a pop artist) and David Deitch, the New York dealer recently appointed director of the Museum of Comtemporary Art in LA] I did however pose a final question: "We're here at a giant art fair, probably the most important one in the world where contemporary art auctions make the news not only in the arts sections of newspapers but in the front pages. Some dealers-- Larry Gagosian and Eli Broad, for example -- are more famous these days than artists. Irving, you made history with your life in the art market. Jeffrey, you got your job at MOCA substantially because of your reputation as a dealer. so my question is, 'With regards to contemporary art and the contemporary art market, have we come to the point where the tail is wagging the dog?'"
The answers I got were politic...
...I was struck--gobsmacked might be more accurate--- by how, in an art world where 1970's "pluralism" has grown like kudzu into a devouring relativism that has obliterated the contours of "quality", people can still talk with such suave assurance about "good art", "appropriate" prices and "the right things". ...
p. 43, AIA October, 2010
Saturday, October 9, 2010
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