Some Musings on the Market

Paul McCarthy, Tomato Head (Green), 1994

One of the many pleasures of living in New York City is the presence of major auction houses like Christie’s and Sotheby’s, whose previews provide free and relatively unconstrained access to impressive artworks. This week I spent some time at Christie’s, where Paul McCarthy’s larger than life take on Mr. Potato Head, Tomato Head (1994), one of an edition of three, was on view before being auctioned off with other works from the Peter Norton collection.

Viewers are permitted to get close—sometimes perilously so—to the works. I had to maneuver awkwardly around the scattered pieces of Tomato Head—including parts never imagined by the makers (or consumers) of Mr. Potato Head—to get a good look at Christian Marclay’s Guitar Neck (1992), an assemblage of seven record album covers hung one above the other to form an elongated … you guessed it … guitar neck. Guitar Neck is the kind of art a fourteen year old would think was cool, and would probably make, if fourteen year olds still owned records. Estimated at $60-80,000, it took in a whopping $266,500, further evidence, in case anyone needed it, that the art market is doing just fine. In fact, Tomato Head, which was estimated at $1-1.5 million, sold for just over $4.5 million (gulp). Installed on the wall beside Tomato Head was a concave, stainless steel disk by Anish Kapoor. These are strange bedfellows, these two works, and Kapoor’s austere minimalist mirror turned Tomato Head on its head, as if to rebuke McCarthy for his intransigence.

The atmosphere at a preview is charged in a way that a museum visit never is—these things are for sale! Overhearing snippets of conversations and filling in the blanks imaginatively is part of the fun. A collector suggests the mantle as a good location for a sumptuous wall-mounted sculpture by Josiah McElheny; her art advisor (perhaps?) suggests the work would be better hung at eye level, as it was at Christie’s. One smartly dressed woman gives another a lesson on Glenn Ligon—potential buyers or art tourists, like me? A small group of people gathered in the center of a gallery—investors discussing an opportunity, or tourist-tourists? (The latter, as it turned out; next stop, Times Square!)

This is a place of commerce, which can scarcely be forgotten amid the price tags and frenetic staff; but the outrageousness of the prices neutralizes the atmosphere somewhat, at least for me. I’ve sometimes wondered how the experience might differ if I were acquisitive and capable of satisfying that impulse. Just this week while in Savannah, I was put to the test, albeit under rather different circumstances. The Savannah School of Art and Design has a wonderful gift shop, filled with interesting objects designed by its students and faculty. I found myself drawn to a beautiful little print; its price—under $100. And just like that, appreciation turned into acquisitiveness. Maybe it would look good above my desk.

The PST Blues

A very wise man I know taught me the acronym FOMO—Fear Of Missing Out. As an art historian who researches West Coast art and lives on the East Coast, this is my autumn of FOMO. Google alerts and various e-newsletters daily remind me that dozens of “Pacific Standard Time” exhibitions—some of them reportedly wonderful, others just okay—are currently on view in Southern California. The cynic in me (I am a New Yorker, after all) takes comfort in the odd bad review—perhaps I’m not missing that much after all, and there are always the catalogues. But the realist in me knows that it’s dreadful to be so far away from so much bounty and plots my return to that sunny place on a calendar marked with closing dates. (Note that I didn’t equate cynicism with realism—there’s hope for me yet.)

Sarah Jessica Parker Must Have a Lot of Clout

Bravo’s “Work of Art: The Next Great Artist” is back for its second season. The formula and prizes have changed not at all. Best of all, “mentor” Simon de Pury is back, delightfully awkward as ever. I worried that viewings of last season’s episodes would have rendered him stiltedly self-conscious, but lucky for us, this has not come to pass. The sound of Simon saying “The Sucklord”—the preferred name of one of the artists on the show—in that sing-songy, guttural way of his is worth the price of admission. And the price is high.

The work produced on this show is, with a few exceptions, awful. In a previous post, I surmised that the failure of “Work of Art” to catch on in the manner of “Project Runway” or "Top Chef” might have something to do with our inability to be satisfied by a work of art which is put together well, and only that. The show’s formula, which demands that its artists produce works very quickly and according to a given theme, all but guarantees that the end results will be little more than well constructed, if that.

The first episode asked the artists to take kitschy works of art—a painting of a clown, a hideous collage—and to remake them according to their own styles. This challenge underscores the fundamental contradiction of “Work of Art.” It is a direct result and manifestation of our willingness to consider “lower” artforms (television shows, for instance) alongside the kind of art that is typically found in a Chelsea gallery. Yet, “Work of Art” stubbornly insists on clinging to antiquated ideas about the status of “art”—that it is inherently better than other kinds of visual expression (folk art, for instance); that one can create a “true work of art” (this is the compliment bestowed on each week’s winner); and that good art appeals primarily to the emotions. Michelle, the winner of the first challenge, seems to have risen in the judges’ estimation when she told them the sad story behind her work. Little has changed, it seems, since the days of “Queen for a Day”—the saddest story still wins.

The second episode of the season split the artists into two teams and asked them to draw inspiration from the idea of “movement.” The winning team’s banal response (after being pressured by Simon to abandon a more promising direction involving digestion) was to create a “playground” filled with kinetic art which was not actually kinetic (sure, the pieces could move, once you pushed them).

As with all reality television, however, the real object of fun is not the bad work, but the personalities which create them. In this case, Kathryn came in for a drubbing for producing a piece which was, as Simon rightly noted, the twin to her work of the previous week. It was fun to watch Kathryn get defensive with Simon; it was also kinda great when she went to the roof to chant; but the paydirt—the moment promo’d in all the commercials—was when she cried the most uninhibited adult cry I’ve ever seen, and just like that, we viewers became the mean kids on the playground.

“Work of Art” might work better if it gave up its highfalutin pretenses and embraced the kitsch. If “the only rule in art is what works”—as host and “subject, muse, and connector” China Chow tells us every week—then this show needs to be working a little harder. Will I continue to watch it even if it doesn't? Sadly, yes, but it engages me at roughly the same level that all Bravo fare does, despite its aspirations to something better.

Get Your Metrocard Here! Or, More Ways to Spend Money at MoMA

 









I refilled my Metrocard today … at MoMA.

A Metrocard vending machine is included in the exhibition Talk to Me, MoMA’s meditation on interactive design. Despite the exhibition’s theme, many of the objects on view can’t actually be handled; my 1990s brain prevented me from successfully engaging some of those that could. (Thankfully, the Menstruation Machine, 2010, is for display only … can the phrase ‘too much information’ apply to inanimate, if not inert, objects?) Signs tell viewers that they can enhance their experience of the exhibition by logging onto MoMA’s wifi with their phones; even my 2010 phone refused to cooperate. Then, I saw the Metrocard vending machine.

Once I determined that it was fully operational (if slightly modified—see the photos above), I took the opportunity, not to purchase one of the special-issue cards it dispenses, but to refill the card I’m currently using. Like most New Yorkers, I already have about six Metrocards in my wallet, each with $1.80 on it, or some other useless sum.

The experience was actually sort of great. I was lucky enough to be in the museum before it opened—a first, and a huge advantage (see The Museumgoer is, Against All Odds, Present). In fact, aside from the guards, I was alone at Talk to Me. I had only ever bought a Metrocard surrounded by harried commuters and clueless tourists. This was the cleanest machine I’d ever seen—none of the fingerprint-and-mystery-goo of your typical Metrocard vending machine. My credit card swipe was successful on the first try—another first. Mostly, though, it was a pleasure to interact with the machine without feeling rushed, without worrying about missing the next train. It gave me an opportunity to notice just how well-designed it is; it’s colorful and whimsical, like Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie (1942-43, in MoMA’s collection).

It’s also communicative, like the electronic billboard in the 1991 movie “L.A. Story," which dispensed life lessons along with the traffic conditions. If this object existed, it would have fit perfectly into Talk to Me. “L.A. Story” is an urban fairytale, however, and while many of the objects in the show are supremely innovative, they didn’t speak to me on an emotional level, as MoMA’s curators suggested they might.

Postscript:

I was a little disappointed that Edward Kienholz’s The Friendly Grey Computer—Star Gauge Model #54 (1965) wasn’t included in the show. This kinetic sculpture, which is owned by MoMA, purports to interact with viewers by answering their questions—yellow flashing lights indicate yes, blue lights indicate no. Of course, Kienholz’s attitude toward technology was ambivalent—the “machine” sits in a rocking chair and a text tells viewers that “Computers sometimes get fatigued and have nervous breakdowns, hence the chair for it to rest in.” This may more accurately reflect most people’s feelings about technology than the organizers of Talk to Me realize.

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Art Critic Invokes Undergraduate Textbook

Holland Cotter's front-page story in this week's New York Times Sunday Styles, "Male Models at the Line of Beauty," is ostensibly about the men's fashion shows at New York Fashion Week. Ill-equipped for this assignment (he writes that he was "learning on the job"), Cotter "pulled out [his] old H. W. Janson survey book" in the hopes of ... I'm not sure, exactly. As if taking his cues from the encyclopedic range and limited depth of the Janson book, Cotter jumps from one tenuous, superficial observation to the next: male models are beautiful like Greek statues; models line up on the runway like figures in a Byzantine mosaic (hmmm); utilitarian clothes are like Constructivist garment designs.

Cotter's take on the fashions are also head-scratchingly banal: "Tommy Hilfiger went sort of nuts with nautical stripes at his show" but "the men still looked dressed-down-drab." The article is filled with disclaimers like, "don’t listen to me, an art geek who wandered into a strange new world, about what men’s fashion should do," which makes you wonder how Cotter got stuck with this assignment in the first place.

"I’m deeply skeptical of the fashion-as-art talk of recent years," Cotter writes. His glib treatment of artistic sources here suggest that he may be skeptical of the appeal of fashion journalism to art-lovers as well. Regular readers of the Sunday Styles, of which I am one, might be insulted by this clunker (and our expectations aren't terribly high to begin with). But let's not. Mr. Cotter was probably just having a bad day, and we can always amuse ourselves with the wedding announcements.

The Museumgoer is, Against All Odds, Present

Artinfo reported today on a video game created by one Pippin Barr, a “Copenhagen-based game creator and scholar.” The game, which has the look of something you might have played on your Atari, begins when your avatar enters the doors of MoMA; he pays the $25 admission fee (yes, it’s gone up), passes through a sparsely hung gallery, and arrives at the line for The Artist is Present, the much-talked about Marina Abramovic performance which took place in the museum’s atrium last year. For those who could not attend the performance, it was streamed live on MoMA’s website. For those who missed that as well, there is Barr’s version.

Regular reader(s) of this blog may recall from a previous post that I am a bit squeamish about art that threatens to put me, the viewer, on display. It therefore never crossed my mind to sit across from Abramovic and stare awkwardly into her eyes for an indeterminate amount of time in front of scores of onlookers. Braver museumgoers than I, however, happily queued up for this opportunity. This is the experience that the player of Barr’s game endures. When I played the game, there were twenty-four people ahead of me. If you leave the game to do other things, thinking that when you return it will be your turn to face Abramovic, you are mistaken. Aggressive museumgoers who come in behind you will take your place if you don’t move forward when the line does.

Barr’s version of The Artist is Present is hardly an accurate record of the performance, but it perfectly captures the frustration which often accompanies a trip to the always-crowded Museum of Modern Art. The crowds were especially thick during Abramovic’s retrospective, which received more than its fare share of press coverage for its inclusion of nude performers and for Abramovic’s incredible feat of endurance—she sat at that table in the atrium every day, all day, for the entire duration of the show (with rare exceptions).

Barr’s game draws our attention to the endurance of the other participants in The Artist is Present. More forcefully, perhaps, it illuminates the much more banal, and certainly less celebrated, acts of endurance performed by visitors to MoMA and other popular museums every day. Ordinary people show up, pay their $25 fees, and patiently—because it requires so much patience—wait their turns to see some of the greatest art ever created; and sometimes, even, some not-so-great art.

Lady Gaga Before the Mirror

Many a time the mirror imprisons them and holds them firmly. Fascinated they stand in front. They are absorbed, separated from reality and alone with their dearest vice, vanity.

—Rrose Sélavy (aka Marcel Duchamp), “Men Before the Mirror”

Though I’ve long since stopped tuning into MTV’s Video Music Awards, when someone told me that Lady Gaga opened this year’s show with the introduction of a male alter-ego named Jo, I was curious enough to call up the clip on the internet. Sure enough, there (s)he was, sporting a black pompadour and a bound chest. Jo’s eight-minute performance included a five-minute monologue about—who else?—Lady Gaga; Jo played the part of the spurned lover, smoking furiously and beating his chest.

In her recent MTV promo, Lady Gaga (née Stefani Germanotta) says: “I really believe that art is this huge lie … we sing it and we dance and we dress it every day, and me and my friends all hope that someday we tell it enough that it becomes true.” With its black-and-white palette and close-ups of musicians, one can almost be forgiven for forgetting that the spot is an advertisement for something so crude and commercial as the Video Music Awards. Lady Gaga would like to be more than just a pop star; she sees herself and has encouraged others to see her as something of a performance artist. (By invoking her “friends” in the MTV spot, she even suggests the existence of an avant-garde coterie à la the New York School.) By donning the mantle of Art (note the capital 'A'), she has gained permission to do things and to say things that other popular performers would not do or say—their careers could not survive it. Though her audiences often appear embarrassed for her—this was surely the case at Sunday’s VMA’s—she survives to sing another song because she is vested with the authority of the Artist.

This is a clever trick, and she is not alone in deploying it. In the name of Art, James Franco has deigned to educate the masses about the distinction between high and low cultures: how wonderfully postmodern it is to see a “serious” actor play an artist on “General Hospital”! Lady Gaga and James Franco are not content to be mere artists; that is, talented performers in their respective fields. Their narcissism compels them to seek—and if they don’t find, to invent—ever more and elaborate ways to display themselves. It is fitting that Lady Gaga’s most recent incarnation (after all, Lady Gaga is herself an invention) is the lover of Lady Gaga.

For all of their supposed melding of high and low, art and life, what saves these performers is precisely the persistence of these distinctions. Lady Gaga says that she longs for the dissolution of boundaries between art and life, but her career depends on that boundary remaining fixed.