‘Saatchi paints a scathing picture of the contemporary art world and says that being a buyer these days “is comprehensively and indisputably vulgar”.
He says: “It is the sport of the Eurotrashy, hedgefundy, Hamptonites; of trendy oligarchs and oiligarchs; and of art dealers with masturbatory levels of self-regard.” Saatchi described the Venice Biennale, scene of the world’s biggest contemporary art jamboree, as a place where these people circulate “in a giddy round of glamour-filled socialising, from one swanky party to another”.’ http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/dec/02…
For those of you thinking “that’s a bit bloody rich coming from him” join the club. However, Saatchi’s is just one in a series of articles and polemics condemning the megabux world of contemporary art (that’s the bit of it that we all look at from a great distance, and wonder what the hell it has to do with us)
What’s going on? It just isn’t cool to spend millions of ill gotten gains on art and manipulate and scheme your way to more millions any more. Like the world of investment banking, and the lifestyles of the super-rich everywhere, it is monstrously out of touch and crucially out-of-step with the rest of the world.
Art just isn’t cool anymore, whatcha gonna do?
http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/4683/full
“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.” Dave Hickey
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/oct/28…
The self-fulfilling self-perpetuating fluff of the art world, art consultants, critics, curators, journalists, innumerable administrators and marketeers, manipulators and pundits are a mirror of the accreted ‘services” of every part of the bloated consumer-based world. In banking, in business, in property, in the public sector and in the arts these layers of belief in a market are what give it it’s momentum. Why did no one say anything about all of this before? Collective belief.
I was having a friendly little argument recently with painter Joss Cole, he’s a fiercely intelligent man but a little more idealistic than me, and we were attempting to identify the next movement in art, or certainly ferret out some clues about the shape of it. Post-Internet was mooted although this now seems dated, and Cynical Post-Internet, or what about Post-Consumerist? Post-Object?
It occurred to me that you can only really identify a movement strongly in retrospect, Joss disputed this, but I think it is certainly true nowadays. For this reason; who are you rebelling against? Whose work or attitude are you turning over? The contemporary art machine is voracious and is fashion-led, fashions change remarkably quickly, so you can see yourself on the rebellious fringes looking in one moment, and a month or two later be toast of the town, a month or two after that and you are part of the establishment.
Contemporary Art has to remain cool, it has to have the latest thing, just as the fashion industry sees hemlines and trouser shapes change at least twice a year, if you aren’t ahead of the curve you are behind it, and that ain’t cool.
Still, cheer up contemporary art world, painting died and came back to life, so can you.
More links:
Hari Kunzru dissects Damien Hirst
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/mar/16…
Sarah Thornton’s 10 reasons to quit writing about the art market
http://blogs.artinfo.com/abovetheestimate/2012/10/…
Edited: And from the mouths of oligarchs
