{"id":2840,"date":"2013-04-06T16:35:31","date_gmt":"2013-04-06T16:35:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/?p=2840"},"modified":"2013-04-03T23:47:26","modified_gmt":"2013-04-03T23:47:26","slug":"balkanization-of-the-art-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/?p=2840","title":{"rendered":"Decline and fall"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"gallery<\/a><\/p>\n

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Artists and dealers are as passionate as ever about creating good shows, but fewer and fewer people are actually seeing them. Chelsea galleries used to hum with activity; now they\u2019re often eerily empty. Sometimes I\u2019m nearly alone. Even on some weekends, galleries are quiet, and that\u2019s never been true in my 30 years here. (There are exceptions, such as Gagosian\u2019s current blockbuster Basquiat survey.) Fewer ideas are being exchanged, fewer aesthetic arguments initiated. I can\u2019t turn to the woman next to me and ask what she thinks, because there\u2019s nobody there. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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Instead, the blood sport of taste is playing out in circles of hedge-fund billionaires and professional curators, many of whom claim to be anti-market. There used to be shared story lines of contemporary art: the way artists developed, exchanged ideas, caromed off each other\u2019s work, engaged with their critics. Now no one knows the narrative; the thread has been lost. Shows go up but don\u2019t seem to have consequences, other than sales or no sales. Nothing builds off much else. Art can\u2019t get traction. A jadedness appears in people who aren\u2019t jaded. Artists enjoying global-market success avoid showing in New York for fear any critical response will interfere with sales. (As if iffy international art stars could have their juggernauts stalled by a measly bad review or two. A critic can only dream.) Ask any artist: They\u2019re all starting to wonder what\u2019s going on.\u00a0<\/em>—Jerry Saltz<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A great piece from Mr. Saltz at New York<\/em> magazine, though I think he’s partly transposing onto current events the lack of a feeling he would have gotten decades ago when people thought art was historically progressive and something novel was afoot. What he’s saying is all true, at least from the view I get through my tiny, inefficient portal into the economic wasteland as it looks from out here in the hinterland. In terms of how money gets spent, obviously, something is replacing the gallery show but it isn’t friendly and it’s more about investment than any sort of passion for what art can do. “The whole middle is being pulverized.” In other words, the art world follows the money and the money is all in the hands of people who just want to protect and increase it. On the other hand, maybe this is the sort of collapse that happens before something new and vital and more democratic emerges? \u00a0As in France and America a couple hundred years ago (Not that anybody has a good idea how to replace an entire system that’s driving this country through yet another bubble toward another precipice.) Meanwhile, people talk about how to control assault weapons and whatever nutty thing Korea is doing to distract us from the fact that everything has ground to a halt. Depressing and sad.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Artists and dealers are as passionate as ever about creating good shows, but fewer and fewer people are actually seeing them. Chelsea galleries used to hum with activity; now they\u2019re often eerily empty. Sometimes I\u2019m nearly alone. Even on some weekends, galleries are quiet, and that\u2019s never been true in my 30 years here. (There […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nDecline and fall - represent<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thedorseypost.com\/?p=2840\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Decline and fall - represent\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Artists and dealers are as passionate as ever about creating good shows, but fewer and fewer people are actually seeing them. 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