Charles Lewis Art - California

Two Art Worlds - Which One Are You In?

In its Nov. 28th (2009) issue, the Economist magazine ran a special section on the art market. It was notable for its shameless pandering to the high end and its distaste for everything else. If we believe the Economist, there are really only four or five artists that matter: Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, plus (distantly) Picasso, Francis Bacon and Monet. Damien Hirst also rates a mention. They extol at considerable length the virtues of Andy Warhol, doing an excellent job of re-marketing the polished opinions of some prominent Warhol dealers and collectors as to the greatness of their subject. Jeff Koons gets a similar star treatment. It’s hard not to notice the elephant in the room: the desire to justify, and hopefully to continually increase, the price paid for the art.

One of the articles in their section is titled, How to make art history. They pose the question, “… in a world where anything can be art and concept is king, how do works by living artists accrue value?”  They answer this by describing the artist’s social and professional milieu, carefully avoiding anything about the quality of the art. A clue is the phrase “concept is king.” Here they skip the quality issue in favor of the social and behavioral one. In my view, this reveals that the interlocking network of influencers typically have little (or no) ability to render accurate qualitative judgments. Even so, they never miss an opportunity to offer an opinion. What matters is being on the cutting edge, being new. The primacy of the new rules the art market. Fad value drives a market much faster, and more easily than anything to do with quality. Once the fad value is established, it’s easy to commission an ever-growing body of critical material to support it.

The Economist goes on to say, “In a social setting where the official rule is rule-breaking, the artist who crawls under the first hurdle, knocks over the second and does a strange scissor kick over the third may ultimately win the greatest recognition. Almost by definition, a competent artist is an insignificant one.”  Put in plain words, it doesn’t matter what you make, as long as you can fabricate a newsworthy persona and line up top marketing talent in the form of dealers, curators and critics. 

I’m here at my work table, which combines the functions of easel, office and general horizontal surface that catches all manner of weird stuff, wondering why that high-end, rarified art market seems so impossibly distant to me? I think it’s because there are two art markets. The art world that I inhabit consists of people like me compulsively trying to make quality art. Maybe we make a living from the art, maybe not. Usually not, in fact. Unless you’re Jeff Koons reading this, which seems improbable, you’re probably in my art world. The other world, where artists make millions from individual works and enjoy massive publicity, is open to only a few living artists. I wish them well, but they live in a different world altogether.

We could also divide the art world in a different way - there is one that consists of working artists and another that consists of the “Art World,” i.e. the whole galaxy of dealers, collectors, critics and others, many of whom exist solely to interface between the artists and the public. They largely control the business, and unfortunately the value, of art. In other words, the money part. Like Mr. Levi Strauss, who realized there was a lot more money to be made from selling trousers to the California Gold Rush prospectors than from being a prospector, these folks tend to do pretty well from the efforts of artists.  It seems that success for many artists - Andy Warhol comes to mind - is overwhelmingly due to being able to participate effectively in the ‘Art World,’ rather than their art production. If you’re shy, live in a rural area, or are basically unconnected to the (uppercase) Art World, you’re in for trouble. I fit into all three!